Timing can be crucial in the hospitality game – and the time is nigh for wine bars in Dublin. Several years ago, the owners of the excellent Baggot Street Wine off-licence decided that Dublin needed more wine bars and they opened Cavern in the long, skinny and surprisingly airy basement below their busy wine shop. A few years in, they decided that Dublin - or Baggot Street – wasn’t actually ready for more wine bars, and Cavern closed.
Fast forward another couple of years, and this time around Dublin has decided that it does want more wine bars – and the more attitude they can bring, the better (think Loose Canon, Franks, Green Man Wines and Piglet). Enter Bobby’s, stage left, complete with a cheeky new candy-pink decor and the creative talents of chef Holly Dalton (ex-Gertrude) who conceived the short snacks-and-toasties menu and sommelier Scott White of Mr Fox who curated the wine list.
Bobby’s feels fun, the kind of place you might pop into after work for a quick debrief, and pour yourself out of hours later, having worked your way through the menu for an unplanned supper and probably made new friends in the intimate smoking area out back while you were at it.
The menu is designed for grazing rather than feasting, though you could happily start with a bar snack of plump pickled mussels with sourdough and whipped butter, or an excellent roasted corn and chickpea hummus with fermented hot sauce and chive oil, and then decide to hell with dinner plans and order one of several tempting toasties. These have been cleverly conceived to hero some favourite Irish farmhouse cheeses – such as the Cáis na Tire sheep cheese with Connemara air-dried ham, for example, with gherkin, onion marmalade and tarragon mustard – but Dalton isn’t scared of emboldening those big flavours even further with some international touches, as in the Toonsbridge mozzarella, sobrassada and sun dried tomato toastie. There’s even dessert if you want it, in the form of a retro-tastic yet bang on-trend chocolate and malt ice cream sandwich (malt being the dessert flavour du jour of Dublin dining).
The wine list features about two dozen wines, including bubbles, port and sherry, all available by the glass and helpfully split into ‘classics’ (think Raul Perez’s Ultreia Godello or Don David’s Malbec from Salta and Cafayette in Argentina) and ‘mavericks’ (La Stoppa’s Trebiolo Rosso blend of Barbera and Bonarda, or Quinta da Muradella’s blend of local Monterrei grapes Dona Blanca and Treixadura with Verdelho). Service is warm and enthusiastic, and there are some excellent wines here well worth exploring.
Basements can be tricky places to build a business out of, however, as can wine bars where prices start at €8 for a glass but most are above €10. It remains to be seen whether Bobby’s – which is named after the 13th century Irish judge Sir Robert Bagod, himself the namesake of one of Dublin’s most storied streets – will prove a keeper or just a fun but brief affair, but if it can draw the post-work crowds, it may just swing it.
