The gambas (€18) come first, four of them in a shallow metal dish, heads on, shells crisped, bodies half-submerged in lemon, garlic and chilli butter that has darkened and intensified at the edges from the heat of the grill. A wedge of lemon sits to one side with a doorstep of outstanding focaccia, fermented for 48 hours, bursting with air pockets.
This is messy food – heads to be sucked, shells to prise open, sauce to mop – and that’s precisely why it works. The char on the prawn shells brings a mix of smoke, burnt sugar and the faint iodine salinity of the sea, sharpening the sweetness of the flesh inside, like burnt toffee wrapped around brine. They’re Argentinian prawns, landed here frozen, yet still thick with juices in the heads. You realise that this is where the menu starts and where it should probably end – because nothing else will be as good.
Sean Crescenzi and Jamie McCarthy opened Borgo in the former Loretta’s premises in Phibsborough in late August. It is the newest addition to their group that also includes Crudo, Achara and Hera – the last recently. “Borgo” translates as neighbourhood or borough, a nod to Phibsborough and their approach to the menu. It’s divided into spuntini (snacks), pizzette (flatbreads), antipasti, pasta, woodfired mains, sides and desserts. Larger plates range from €18 to €28, with pastas mostly €20 to €23, and wood-fired dishes at the top end.
The wine list is Italian at the core, with Chianti, Barbera, Pecorino and Soave, rounded out with French, Spanish and German bottles. Prices run from €33 to €80, with most in the €45-€55 bracket. We settle on the S’Eleme Vermentino (€42), crisp and clean.
READ MORE
Instead of diving into the pizzette – those blistered flatbreads drifting past to the next table – I decide to test the house-made pasta. So we take two classics: tortiglioni with milk-braised pork ragu (€21) and bucatini “Amatriciana” with sheep’s curd (€20).
I’d meant to do things the Italian way – pasta first, then a main – but because I hadn’t spelled it out, everything turned up at once. The ragu, the amatriciana, and the premature order of hake. I must have looked like I’d just been bumped off a flight, because our waitress clocked it straight away, apologised without hesitation and disappeared with the fish dish.
What matters is what happens next. Rather than leaving the fish to congeal under the pass, at the appropriate time, a fresh fillet is grilled over the custom-built Santa Maria-style wood-burning barbecue.
We have of course massively over-carbed. The tortiglioni – fat extruded tubes – are buried in a rich pork ragu, savoury and faintly sweet from the milk it has been braised in, blanketed under a heavy snowfall of Cloonbook cheese. It’s a portion made to be a main course, not something to be wedged in between gambas and fish.
[ Find a restaurant: read Corinna Hardgrave's reviewsOpens in new window ]
And then there’s the bucatini “Amatriciana”: long hollow strands slicked with tomato and crisp shards of guanciale, buried under pecorino and a dollop of sheep’s curd. It is intense and quite salty. The curd adds a touch of creaminess but it lacks spark and definition. It would benefit from a squeeze of lemon to balance the sauce with acidity.
The hake alla brace (€24) follows – a thick fillet, skin blackened over the fire, and cooked perfectly, resting in a fish broth with borlotti beans and cherry tomatoes. Again, it’s a tad on the salty side and could do with a splash of acidity.
Dessert is the polenta cake (€9), a golden slab that has soaked up brown butter until it is nutty. It comes with roasted peach – soft, sweet, and lovely against the grain of the cake – and a spoon of white chocolate mascarpone. The cake is excellent but the mascarpone tips it too far into sweetness. It would be stronger with plain mascarpone and cream, lighter, cleaner, letting the cake and fruit do the work.
Borgo is generous – in the service, in the size of the plates and in how relaxed it feels to sit there. You can come for a quick pizzette and a glass of wine, or make an evening of it and work through the pastas and mains, though maybe not two plates of pasta before fish.
It feels genuine in a way that big capital-backed chains, even at their best, never do. Those places are built on spreadsheets and margin. Borgo is built on care – the sort of place that roots itself into a neighbourhood and stays. Dinner for two with a bottle of wine was €134.
The verdict: House-made pasta, outstanding focaccia and spectacular gambas.
Food provenance: McLoughlin’s Butchers, Abercorn Farm, Velvet Cloud, The Mushroom Butcher, Glenmar Seafood, and Ballymakenny potatoes.
Vegetarian options: Padron peppers with taleggio custard, burrata with spiced plums, confit leek and scamorza arancini, mushroom and stracciatella pizzette, ricotta gnocchetti sardi with courgettes.
Wheelchair access: Fully accessible with an accessible toilet.
Music: A mix of Italo disco, funk and soul.
