Dunne & Crescenzi
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Location:
14/16 S Frederick St
Visited:
about 1 year ago
Reviewed by:
Martin McKenna
Rating:
Over the last two years or so, there seems to have developed two stratospheres of pricing in Dublin’s eateries: yesterday’s prices, and today’s. Yesterday’s prices are those of the €4-plus coffees and €8.50 sandwiches. Those prices just don’t seem compatible with today’s world. Newly-opened places to eat generally observe the new world order of prices, and many existing places have brought their prices back down to reality. There are exceptions across the board: Conrad Gallagher’s Salon de Saveurs prices seem to have mysteriously time-travelled from 2006 for example. (They didn’t have chip and pin then either, you know.)
Dunne & Crescenzi is one such spot that has recently adjusted their prices downwards. Their menu is a bit complicated, running the gamut from nibbles to starters to light mains to large mains. Somewhere in there are a few suitable options for lunch.
Bruschetta al pomodoro (€5.50) is executed to perfection. Open-textured ciabatta is toasted to an attractive char and topped with a generous heap of ripe tomatoes, torn basil, salt and pepper and slicked with good olive oil. A dish as simple as this is unforgiving of carelessness: get it right, like Dunne & Cresenczi do, and you begin to wonder why you eat anything else for lunch.
The bruschetta with cannellini beans and sun-dried tomatoes (€6.50) is more substantial. The creamy neutrality of the beans worked well with the texture of the toasted bread and the peppery oil, but the flecks of chopped tomato were tough, as sun-dried tomatoes often are, and were insufficient in number and flavour at that.
Panino piccante (€7.50 in, €5.50 out) with chili salami, roasted peppers and provolone got the ratio of bread to fillings wrong and was dry, which was a pity because those fillings were of good quality and flavour.
Minestrone (€6.00—€8.50), pasta and gnocchi (€9.00—€17.00) and substantial salads (€5.00—€10.00) round out lunchtime options. With an ever-vigilant eye out for bargains, we’d be remiss not to mention the €4 glass of house red or white—perfectly drinkable and a tempting prospect on a Friday lunchtime (in fact, that thought may lead you to that day’s special, as it did I one Friday recently—canneloni pasta with a delicate sauce of yellow courgettes and finely flaked lemon sole was delicious and worth splashing out for at around €16).
Dunne & Crescenzi is now a more and more appealing prospect for lunch, as the springtime weather suits their light, flavoursome food, and their new prices suit our wallets. Recommended.
