Restaurant review: The best of autumn flavours served in a Scandi-chic space

A “small family run modern Irish restaurant in a relaxed setting… using the best ingredients we can find”. This is how Forest Avenue describe themselves — exactly the kind of sentiments I like to see.

Forest Avenue was opened in 2013 by husband and wife team of John and Sandy Wyer, John is from Glanmire and Sandy from Queens New York (Forest Avenue to be exact, hence the name of the restaurant).

I booked too late to get a regular table but we were quite happy perched at the bar where we had a nice view of the dining room. The room is pared back with Scandi-chic vibes, all white walls, warm wood furniture, modernist lighting and the kitchen in full view. The atmosphere was lively, helped by our endlessly energetic server, Sorcha, who bounced from the bar to the pass to the tables and seemed to be everywhere at once.

Within minutes of sitting down our pre-dinner snacks began to arrive, all of which impressed. 

First up were baby tartlets filled with creamy cheddar, then pretty diced yellow beetroot in a seaweed shell, the beetroot having been given a light pickle while the crisp seaweed added earthy notes. 

Rich chicken liver parfait in a crisp casing was topped with nutty pollen and a chilled clear broth of plum and cherry tomatoes was bright and crisp and enlivened with punchy leek oil.

Our first course used cubes of raw crown prince pumpkin with dark fleshed ‘blood plum’ slices and an almond cream. This was our least favourite dish of the meal as even the best tasting pumpkin (and Crown Prince is in season and arguably the best of them all), is still a little unexciting.

Having made previous visits to Forest Avenue (and especially when they transformed into a grocery shop during covid) I was looking forward to our bread course. 

Wyer makes some of the best sourdough in the nation I believe, with a perfect crust and a delicate but textured crumb— it really is a thing of wonder and reminded me that I still haven’t visited their bakery in Ranelagh called Una which opened earlier this year.

Whipped butter, a nicely dressed salad with crisp leaves and a small slice of pâté de campagne (or similar) added extra comfort notes to the bread course, More pâté would have been welcome but that’s me being greedy.

Velouté of pumpkin soup was richly flavoured with a gorgeous texture and tasted properly autumnal. I even quite liked the touch of vadouvan curry flavour that had been added, thankfully just a small amount. 

(As an aside, to me vadouvan curry too often tastes like Saxa curry powder from my childhood and this is not a good thing, I’ve spotted vadouvan on four high-end menus in recent months and I really wish Irish chefs would look to India, Pakistan or almost anywhere Asia other than feckin’ France for their curry inspiration.)

Next up a beautifully cooked piece of plaice, translucent, succulent and topped with sweet mussels and shiitake mushrooms with a cauliflower purée to add savoury notes and a rich shellfish sauce to hold it all together. Perfect.

Following the triumph of the plaice the dry aged suckling pig that came next was even better, sweet and porky with crunchy crackling and perfectly rendered fat. Beetroot ‘caramel’ purée, blanched cress and a rich jus all added to the dish and the pork itself was outstanding. All good but I confess I would love to have seen some potatoes or other veg added to prolong the course and give the pork something to bounce off.

Forest Avenue’s wine list is pleasingly eclectic with a good mix of classics and less commonly seen wines (e.g. Austrian St. Laurent). There is also a fairly priced fine wine section. Prices start at €48 for the ‘Forest Avenue’ Bourgogne Blanc or Coteaux Bourguignons and I chose the latter which had lots of crunchy red fruit flavours and worked well with the meal.

Dessert of creamy rice pudding was topped with ‘buckwheat’ ice cream, fig jelly and a ginger crisp, as good as rice pudding probably gets and adored by the Engineer— I just wish rice pudding didn’t remind me of school lunches. A bonus dessert of bread and butter pudding with a tonka bean foam was even better; rich, satisfying and tasting of home.

So many restaurants promise seasonality and so few follow through, Forest Avenue does. This is fine seasonal cooking in a relaxed setting and atmosphere, just as they promised.

THE VERDICT:

• Food: 8.5/10
• Wine: 8/10
• Service: 9/10
• Atmosphere: 8/10
• Value: 7/10