Review
Sober Lane is in Irishtown, on the stretch of road between Sandymount and Ringsend, close to the bottom of Bath Avenue. It is next door to The Vintage Inn and together they are creating a buzz down this way.
Sober lane is the brainchild of Ernest Cantillon, who we know well through his Cork restaurant, Electric and he organised the Cork Food festival for a couple of years. Ernest is a man on a mission and he has now brought his Sober lane to Dublin, to feed the Jackeens on a winning menu of good burgers, pulled pork, kick ass robs and some retro desserts.
Sober Lane is a pub that does gastro, and the interior is dominated by a large circular bar which serves a good selection of craft beers as well as the usuals. Out back there is the Supper Club, a dining room with long trestle tables that serves a set three course menu for €20, offering a salad, a choice of beef or chicken main course and a dessert.
The bar serves a longer menu which features a selection of burgers, including a fish and chicken option. There are quesadilla’s and pulled pork, ribs and chicken goujons or wings, as well are sides including sweet potato fries.
We ate there recently, myself and Matt Fuller, one of the top chefs in Ireland. We did a bit of pick and mix, so Matt had the Supper Club menu, and I ordered a selection of dishes from the main menu. In the interest of research we also got one of the pizzas, a half and half of the black pudding with apple and onion and the ‘Fay’ a pizza named for the customer who designed it.
The Supper Club started with a feta on rocket salad with candied walnuts and sun dried tomatoes, while I had some calamari rings with a tangy mayo dip. Matt’s feta and rocket salad came in an old style metal dish, and was a generous portion which was nicely dressed and was light and tasty My calamari was tender and the mayo tangy and lemony.
Our pizza came next and was very good indeed. The black pudding with onion and apple was quite delicious, but the Fay half of chorizo, red pepper, pepperoni and jalapenos was sticky and dirty and really more-ish.
Matt’s main course of featherblade beef was tender and full of flavour, and the Asian slaw and skinny fries went down well. I had a huge rack of ribs, sticky and tangy, with large sweet potato chunky fries. These came in a larger version of the retro metal dish and were excellent.
Matt’s dessert was a very good chocolate mousse, while I had a vanilla wafer sandwich, a bit of childhood memory, and both sent us on our way, two happy temporary tent dwellers.
Sober lane is busy and buzzy, and serves good comfort food in a nice environment, the Brunch menu looks interesting, and I can see myself going back to try that soon. Check it out.
