Era,
Hinch Distillery,
19 Carryduff Road,
Ballynahinch,
Co Down
BT27 6TZ.
When chef Gemma Austin closed her brilliantly distinctive and utterly fun restaurant A Peculiar Tea in Belfast in July her frustration was as clear as the vision she brought to the place.
Even with bookings full for months ahead, trading in the city had just become too expensive. According to Austin, overheads – starting with sky-high rents and rates – meant a tasting menu would need to cost £170 per person to turn a profit.
So, combined with a shift in location, Austin moved forward with a shift in focus, opening Era at Hinch Distillery between Ballynahinch and her native Carryduff. Launched with head chef Jean Fox as “a totally different concept. We are going back to what good food really means to us.”
There would be “crowd favourites and “nostalgic Irish dishes”. Whimsy was, for the most part, out the window.
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But after a month, in a post of social media, the kitchen team revealed that “cooking steaks and pork chops is not fulfilling us creatively”. So, another shift, this time to the trusted small plates mode, but with a bit more room to stretch that creativity.
The restaurant space formerly housed the distillery’s entirely forgettable brasserie and it retains the old look of solid mahogany and tasteful peacock-blue leather banquettes, with a few nods to A Peculiar Tea, including the Mad Hatter’s top hat all the way from that particular Wonderland. Era is a bit more understated, but there’s plenty of wonder here too.
Not everything’s a hit, but it’s not far off.
The deep fried birria lasagna with a truffle mornay sauce doesn’t suggest it’s going to anything other than what it is – two slabs of pasta layered with excellent, Mexican-infused, fall-apart beef.
But it’s a lot, and it would still be a lot of you hadn’t knowingly over-ordered as we did. Tasty, cooked well, on a nicely-spiced sauce, but a just too heavy. Yes, it’s part of the whole designed for sharing philosophy, but more than a bite or two, especially with that mornay sauce on, is asking quite a lot.
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The spice bag element of the corn on the cob is tough to pick out too but these stumbles stick out because everything else is so thoroughly just right.
It’s generous cooking with sprinkles of the spins, flicks and twirls, the flair and straight-up stardust you expect from anything with Austin’s name on it.
A pile of crispy arancini could go the same way as the lasagna, but stay just the right side of richness. It’s a funky, unapologetically fungusy concoction, with the breaded risotto balls dragged across the plate to pick up as much of the thick mushroom ketchup as possible.
The brace of huge duck legs that come with pancakes and a bright slaw flavoured with suggestions of Korean beef barbecue dish bulgogi, are sweet and pungent and slide off the bone to be wrapped up with that tangle of cabbage and the crackling skin.
It’s more difficult to wrap up the pork belly tacos, the tortilla base barely viable under the stout wodge of meat that, like that duck, it shatteringly crisp on top and meltingly soft underneath. Japanese mayonnaise, flavoured with fermented koji is an umami-laden base, with everything set off by the dainty cubes of sweet pineapple on top. Who in their right mind would want a pork chop when you can have this?
I suppose plainer tastes have to be respected. So, how about a curry chip? The best thing on the menu. One of the best things I’ve eaten all year – actual curry chips included – the potato pave is one of those things that can’t be improved on.
The thin stacked-together slices are just al dente soft, the outside of the oblong has been fried to a perfect crunch, the taste is instantly evocative. Little gold bars, and just as precious.
Sticky toffee pudding with a cracking salted caramel ice cream and a chocolate nemesis – somewhere between a fudge cake and a mousse – with a sharp raspberry sorbet certainly fit the ‘crowd favourites’ category. But if you want those anywhere you want them at dessert time – at the end of an Era meal to remember.
The bill
Arancini £13
Crispy duck leg £16
Deep fried birria lasagna £15
Pork belly taco £11.95
Spice bag corn on the cob £6
Curried potato pave £7.50
Chocolate nemesis £7
Sticky toffee pudding £6.50
Spicy passion fruit margarita £11
Rhubarb Collins mocktail £7
Total £100.95
