Fantastic gambas from San Lorenzo
San Lorenzo’s, the new fancy Italian place on George’s St is getting such good reviews that it’s probably not really necessary for me to add my voice, but I felt I should still tell you about it because YUM.
San Lorenzo’s occupies the spot that used to be Juice, a long-standing vegetarian restaurant that I always felt was a bit dull and overpriced. The new place is certainly not dull: they do a kind of upscale, New York-y Italian cuisine, and I’m not aware of anywhere else quite like it in Ireland.
My lovely pal Nicole and I went there for their early bird recently and were both thoroughly impressed. The early bird is priced at €19.50 for two courses, or €24.50 for three. It’s not the cheapest deal around, but the early bird had some really impressive dishes with some quite, quite fancy ingredients. We sampled the grilled asparagus with poached egg, hollandaise and prosciutto and pan-fried gambas with white wine, chilli and garlic. The asparagus and egg was beautiful but Nicole’s gambas were the winner – they were huge and delicious, and came in a mind-blowingly amazing garlicky white wine sauce.
The lobster pasta
The delightful luxury continued with our mains: we both had the lobster linguine. It came in a rich, creamy, tomatoey, roast peppery sauce. I’ve found that some restaurants tend to overdo the cream in shellfish pasta dishes, making it too heavy and bland, but this sauce was beautifully red with roast peppers. There was a really good helping of lobster pieces, and it was so rich and delicious that we had no room for dessert and stuck with two courses only.
We had a very nice Sauvignon Blanc for €24 and finished the meals with two excellent coffees. All in it came to just under €70, which I think is very good value for such lovely food with wine. The a la carte menu is quite a bit more, with mains ranging from €22-€29 but the the early bird is a good deal and a lovely treat. Service was excellent throughout, friendly and prompt. I like this place and I shall return.
Have you tried San Lorenzo’s? What did you think?
Tuesday 11 September, 2012 at 12:12 pm
I went here a couple of weeks ago with six others and the food was uniformly delicious. And yes, the staff were lovely too. One other enormous positive – for me anyway – that I would be compelled to mention was the fact it’s quiet, and by that I mean the sound is dead. There are no tiled, mirrored or otherwise reflective surfaces. It was nice to be in a restaurant and hear everything that was being said at the table. Huge plus when added to the standard of the grub.
Tuesday 11 September, 2012 at 8:36 pm
Unrelated to the post but I saw the blog got a plug in today’s Irish Time Price-watch.
Wednesday 12 September, 2012 at 9:51 am
Thanks for the heads-up Derek!
Wednesday 12 September, 2012 at 3:31 pm
Absolutely loved this place, everything we ate was perfect and the staff were lovely, spot on review Jean.
Wednesday 12 September, 2012 at 4:13 pm
I like to eat late-ish so I prefer an all-evening set menu, even if not available Fridays and Saturdays. The one at Locks Brasserie is v good value, for example. So I may wait for S Lorenzos to see the light …