It’s not often that you can lay claim to a table in a restaurant, eat lunch, browse the shelves, and then return to said table to write your review all in one sitting. Located very close to Workman’s on Wellington Quay, one would assume that the newly opened, luxury “food hall and grill” Dollard & Co caters for an entirely different crowd. Yet I found the staff there to be perfectly friendly.
The space is open and relaxed, and the atmosphere is pleasantly uncontrived. The building itself dates back to 1886 and is the site of Dollard Printworks, “the oldest steel frame structure in Ireland”. It has been carefully restored into a food hall and market offering the “best” of Irish and international produce. While it is debatable whether the products on sale in the grocery section are any different from those you would find in Fallon & Byrne or Donnybrook Fair, the style of the food hall is certainly different from anywhere I have eaten before.
Intriguingly, it appears to be modelled after a combination of the grocery section at Avoca, an Italian ice-cream parlour and a New York coffee house. The countertops are marble and the walls are exposed brick. Victorian-style windows balance the black steel pillars that periodically punctuate the space. At first, my senses were overwhelmed by everything happening around me – so much so that I completely missed the pasta counter and pizza oven, which I can only describe as being like the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic, with black tiles from floor to ceiling.
Pasta is made in-house and hand-rolled daily, and pizza is sold by the slice for a decent €4.50, or €3.50 for a margherita. Time is no object here, as the pizza is served through a hatch until 4am every day.
But the centrepiece of the food hall is the main counter. It is here that the food on the grill and deli menu is made. There is also a beautiful homemade ice-cream bar, a juice bar, deli bar and bar seating. I was wary of being pounced on by over-friendly, verging-on-aggressive staff (trained in the American-style of sales), but thankfully this wasn’t the case. In terms of price, the deli menu is more reasonable than the grill menu, where main courses average €15 but go as high as €24. I ordered the Californian Superfood salad, adding chicken for an extra €1.95, totalling €8.90. It had all the components a delicious salad needs: avocado, blueberries, apple, quinoa, broccoli, kale, roasted peanuts and seeds. While it was tasty and filling, the dressing was quite sharp and left an aftertaste.
Did I feel healthy eating it? Yes. Would I order it again? No. This won’t stop me returning though. Partly because, aside from the main counter, there is a cheese and charcuterie counter, fishmonger, breads, take-home meals area, fruit and veg and a compact off-licence. Out front is a large seating area overlooking the Liffey, where I camped out for the best part of the afternoon. Half the experience of Dollard & Co is the style and ambience of the place and the variety of foods and prices on offer, which allows the food hall to appeal to a broad audience.
Despite its broad appeal, it can perhaps be best summed up as that one place you bring your parents when they visit you for the weekend: tasty, fashionable and giving off the appearance that you, as a customer, have your life together.
