Dublin is becoming a serious restaurant town—seven Michelin stars now shine on the greater metropolitan area—and for more than a decade, some of its best food has come from a stylish, low-key establishment called Chapter One, downstairs from the Dublin Writers Museum on Parnell Square. There, Cork-born chef and co-owner Ross Lewis applies flawless French technique and a farm-to-table Irish sensibility to first-rate, mostly Irish raw materials. And for the last five years, he did so with the able assistance of head chef Garrett Byrne, who hails from the ancient city of Kilkenny, about 75 miles southwest of Dublin.
It is axiomatic that good restaurants beget other good restaurants, and it is almost inevitable that accomplished chefs who work for somebody else will one day end up working for themselves. In September, Byrne went home to Kilkenny to open a handsome French-flavored haute bistro called Campagne.
Despite its name (literally “countryside”), Campagne is not at all rustic in appearance; the dining room is contemporary but warm, with lots of blond wood, long olive-hued banquettes, interlocking semi-circular booths (the room is full of curves), a semi-open kitchen, large glass doors at the front that open for warm weather, and a 20-foot-long mural by Kilkenny artist Catherine Barron overlooking everything.
The food is similarly modern, but, like Chapter One, Campagne makes ample use of great Irish ingredients, among them locally made black pudding (blood sausage), Ardsallagh goat cheese from County Cork, and Clare Island salmon. And just as he did at Chapter One, here Byrne applies a sophisticated hand to earthy ingredients. That’s not to say that he is copying his mentor in Dublin. Plenty of dishes are originals, like Byrne’s house-cured gravlax (or gravadlax in local parlance) with fennel and cucumber (very delicate, and a welcome change from the inevitable smoked salmon served everywhere in Ireland; foie gras and suckling pig terrine with puréed beets and hazelnut dressing; filet of sea bream with grilled fennel, tomato, and black olives (beautifully cooked if unfortunately overburdened with green beans and puréed peas in addition to everything else); and Challans duck breast with polenta, green olives, and chorizo.
Ireland needs more restaurants like Campagne—many more—to begin to fulfill its rich promise as a serious gastronomic destination, but Campagne is a delicious step in the right direction.
Campagne 5 The Arches, Gashouse Lane, Kilkenny, Ireland (011-353-56-777-2858)
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