E.Q.B. In 1995, after spending 20 years in Italy studying art and working for the UN in Rome, Eileen Dunne moved back to Dublin with her husband Stefano Crescenzi. Neither had any experience in retail or hospitality, but, disappointed by the poor availability of Italian food in Ireland, they took over a corner shop in the coastal suburb of Sutton that sold cigarettes and newspapers, and turned it into La Vista, a simple Italian salumeria selling imported wine, cheese and 50-litre vats of olive oil, from which regulars would fill empties brought from home.
The sea air proving too fresh for her, and missing the smell of traffic fumes, Pearse Street native Eileen insisted on a move back to town. In 1999, they turned an old lock shop off Nassau Street into a small trattoria serving just antipasti and wine, and called it Dunne & Crescenzi (D&c, to those in the know).
Sutton regulars, missing the cheese and wine and, of course, the vats of oil, followed them to South Frederick Street. A group of town regulars quickly developed too, many of them hanging out for entire afternoons on the famous and beloved white leather couch; Eileen says many of those regulars are still regular and still ask after The Couch.
Eileen’s daughter, Federica, tells me she’s considering creating a register of the current cohort. My dad was away in America for a few months in 2016, and when a week or two had gone by one of the staff worriedly enquired of a friend of his if perhaps Signor John was… ? No, he was still alive, and yes, he was and indeed still is a regular. He can be found at a corner table there at least twice a week, and I, having inherited his love of a haunt along with his affection for D&C, am often gladly there with him. May I one day make the register.
In the 1990s, when Eileen and Stefano first came to Dublin, most ‘real’ restaurants featured white linen tablecloths and wouldn’t let them bring their children – which the children found shocking, having spent much of their early years in Roman restaurants. In contrast, D&c would be a place that would serve you food from early morning to late at night, and you could bring the kids.
In a city with a restaurant scene that is burgeoning relative to international standards – see its recent hosting of the Michelin awards and associated hoopla – D&C is a quiet and comforting though lively venue. It’s your auntie’s favourite restaurant, and maybe you had your graduation or your 21st birthday there. Its footprint has expanded over the years, but the ethos has remained the same: communal coat racks echoing the vibe of the best least formal trattoria in Rome, a meal any time of day, a glass of wine at a table to yourself where you won’t be pestered. Yes, it’s about classic Italian food – a bowl of pasta or lamb and tiramisu on a Sunday a la Romana – but actually it’s about hospitality at its simplest.
Not for nothing, the staff turnover is remarkably low, and many of the team – angels, all – have been there longer than I can remember.
D&c is a kingdom of women. This didn’t happen by accident; Eileen tells me that a place in which women felt comfortable on their own was important to her from the jump. Whenever I am there, the place is filled with tablesful of women. Women in their nicest blouses, or not; women with their sisters or with ‘the girls’, almost never with their husbands; and they are always having a good time, I mean a really good time, laughing aloud and ordering a final glass of wine after they’ve paid the bill. Dad and I were in recently, and there was a woman holding court at a table with two men – a rare phenomenon – her patter wafting across the room in a way that said, Listen, we know I am the clever one here, so please just let me tell my stories.
While I hesitate to call anywhere a ‘refuge’, D&c is a place that makes people feel safe and feel comfortable. Nobody is going to laugh at you if you mispronounce a wine or don’t know whether the chalkboard special is describing a kind of pasta or a kind of cheese. You will not be made to feel as though you don’t know the right way to behave, and you will be taken care of but not fussed over. It is the place I will always recommend to visitors and Dubliners alike, for any occasion. I’ve laughed there, and wept openly about as many times as I’ve ordered something other than my usual: one glass of white wine, then one of red to have with la squisita amatriciana – that is to say, not very often, but more often than you might think. Comfort indeed.
J.B. It was the kind of winter day, rare in these temperate latitudes, when the air itself seemed frozen, tinkling in my throat like draughts of frost. I was due to fly to London for a meeting with an American film producer – yeah, big deal – who was passing through on his way home to LA. I arrived at the airport to find that the place had just shut down – no flights would leave that day. There were no taxis, either, and I barely managed to catch the last airport bus, which slipped and slithered its way into town and deposited me in O’Connell Street, where the ice on the pavement crackled like popcorn under my feet.
What to do, where to go? The answer was easy.
The windows of D&c were steamed up, always a good sign. Inside, about six tables were occupied. The staff smiled as always, took my furs, skis and alpenstock, and sat me down at my accustomed corner table. What’s so great about a movie deal anyway? I’ll have a glass of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, a plate of bruschetta – which by now I have learned to pronounce correctly – followed by a ristretto and a lethal glass of grappa, or kibosh, as I like to call it. I was home.
I am proud to say that I was among the first of those ‘town regulars’ my daughter mentioned above. In the late 1990s, when I was working at the Irish Times, D&C still consisted of one small room, that white sofa, an espresso machine and a slice or two of salami. I fell in love with it on first sight, not least because it reminded me of one of my favourite Italian haunts, Caffé Al Bicerin in Turin, which has been owned and run by women since it started up in 1763.
In those early days of D&C I and the ‘Sutton regulars’ – they sound like a First World War battalion – had the place pretty much to ourselves, until the restaurant critic Tom Doorley gave it a rave; within days there were long, long queues stretching down South Frederick Street and into Nassau Street.
Elio, one of the waiters, a flame-haired Italian, if you can imagine such a rara avis, had taken a shine to me, and when he spied me outside, stamping my feet and blowing into my frozen fists, he would rush out to me with a vivifying glass of prosecco. The looks I got! It was as if I had jumped the queue at Marks and Spencer on Oxford Street.
As Ellen has indicated, D&C is a place where everybody is somebody. Which doesn’t mean that a certain amount of celebrity-spotting doesn’t go on. I clearly recall the day when I was leaving, afloat on kibosh, and a beautiful young woman rose from her table to tell excitedly me that I was her favourite writer of all time, and that of all my books she loved best The Steward of Christendom. I assured her that it was my own favourite, smiled, and moved towards the door, telling myself that, well, Sebastian Barry is not only a fine writer but also a very handsome fellow, and about a foot taller than I am.
Recently I had dinner at D&C with my friends Raymond Bell, the Beckett translator, and Cillian Murphy, who does a little acting. Round us on the walls were a score or more of John Minihan’s magnificent portrait photographs – here Shane McGowan, there Francis Bacon, and Van Morrison squeezed into what seems to be a cupboard, blowing likes blazes on a sax. The other diners made a point of ignoring us, but the female wait-staff were remarkably attentive, one or other of them appearing every five minutes or so to enquire if ‘we’ needed anything, ‘anything at all, more wine, some more bread, me… ?’ Cillian was a gent, as always, and even stayed on after I had left, to sign autographs and pose for photos. I thought of pointing out to them that I, the ignored one, was that famous writer, Sebastian Barry.
A last memory. My friend David Cornwell – aka John Le Carré – was in town for something or other, and we went to D&C, along with David’s wife Jane and my Patricia, Ellen’s mother. I’m sure David expected me to take him to some starred place of Fine Dining and stick him for the bill. D&C was a surprise to him, and a delight. He sat there with his back to the wall – David always made sure to have a wall behind him – and smiled about happily. ‘Isn’t this lovely?’ he said to Jane, beaming. ‘Isn’t this lovely?’ It was, and is.
Envoi. There are rumours of a visit here sometime not so far off by King Felipe of Spain and Queen Letizia. They gave me a prize once, and so, to show my gratitude, guess where I’ll take them for lunch?
