A proper kind of homecoming

Like puppies, local restaurants are not just for Christmas, and Donelli’s has a seasonal menu with plenty of comfort

I AM A SUCKER for a homecoming. I challenge the hard-hearted among you to YouTube the ESB ad from the late 1980s and watch the son returning through a cold, dirty night to an ivy-clad farmhouse glowing with warmth. As the son (who now looks impossibly young) is driven by his dad from the train station, a white-haired mother smilingly potters around switching on electric blankets, taking fresh bread from the oven, and turning up the storage heaters to smother-setting. It’s a special kind of schmaltz set to a Dusty Springfield soundtrack.

I was recently picked up from the train by my mother on a windy, wet Friday night for a mini homecoming. I am now the mammy doing those chores, unsmilingly much of the time, and this is a night off and a chance to be just a daughter again. To make even more of this sense of occasion, my parents and I are going to their local restaurant for dinner.

At this time of the year it’s worth remembering that neighbourhood restaurants are, like puppies, not just for Christmas. We may lavish attention on them in the coming weeks but they have a living to make and small streets to keep alive during the down months, too. In Wicklow town, Donelli’s is a small deli, cafe and wine bar that has brightened up the market square in a place where much of the population works in Dublin on the weekdays.

In summer there are tables outside, and in winter candles glow inside. Tonight there’s a whole candelabra of purple ones on the downstairs counter and a set of tasteful Christmas decorations strung around. Upstairs, at our table by the window, we get a glass of mulled wine to start, and my shoulders unkink a couple of notches.

The seasonal menu is mercifully free of too many seasonal elements, apart from the mulled wine. And it’s €27.95 per person for two courses with a half bottle of house wine, which is also pretty cheerful. My crab and salmon mousse starter comes in a ramekin with a balsamic-dressed side salad and some brown and white bread. I could have done with the bread being toasted but, apart from that, it’s great – fresh and tasty and not too fridge-chilly. Mum’s salad starter has a sprinkling of toasted pancetta in it and lots of tasty, fresh elements. And dad gets a prawn stack that turns out to be a prawn cocktail with a delicious Cognac-laced Marie-Rose sauce.

The main courses are excellent, good simple generous food that tastes home-cooked. Dad and I get the guinea fowl, which comes as two leg portions smothered in a hearty meat-wine jus and sitting on top of a great dollop of creamy mash. The meat of this bird is like a particularly tasty chicken, slightly darker but nothing near as gamey as some of the other birds you’ll see on menus. Perfectly cooked vegetables, broccoli carrots and mange-tout come in as a side dish to the mains. Mum’s pappardelle pasta with prawns is a great bowl of creamy flavour, the wide pasta ribbons doing exactly what it needs to, grabbing gallons of sauce with each forkful.

We’re all too full for dessert but they spin alluringly in a glass cake stand at the other side of the restaurant. It takes good cooking like this to withstand the gravitational pull of the greater Dublin restaurant scene and keep your local customers coming back out of more than just a sense of duty. Donelli’s is what every small commuter town needs, a great little restaurant, even if you’re not on a fleeting time-travel journey back to your youth.

Dinner for three with one and a half bottles of house wine (it’s the Argentinian label Intis, or you can upgrade from the wine menu) and a cappuccino comes to €86.75.

Pizzas: at the Speakeasy

Cheap food can often be nasty, but not in the case of the pizzas at the Speakeasy Café, the former Shebeen Chic on South Great George’s Street in Dublin 2. The man making them is Dave (according to the sign) and he is in residence in an annex to the bar. He seems like a man who knows his dough. The blurb says his sourdough pizza base is made with an 18-hour proofing time. The result is a lighter, tangy-er base that doesn’t make you feel like all those refined carbs are reforming into molten dough in your stomach.

Pizzas are served rough and ready. They come in white boxes, with the name stamped in black on the outside. There is no cutlery and they’re drippy with toppings and sauce, so it’s napkins at the ready. We took our seats in the battered old Louis-the-something-esque armchairs and ate at knee level. My mozzarella and tomato with fresh basil leaves was €5. There are more expensive ones, but nothing that breaches the tenner mark. A friend had a ham and chorizo one, also €5 (these are nine-inch pizzas). If you’re dining companion is hungry, two might be necessary. We had ours with Brazilian Brahma beer for €3 a bottle, bringing dinner for two of three pizzas and three beers to €24.

Speakeasy with Dave’s Wood-Fired Pizza Co, 4 South Great George’s Street, Dublin 2

Donelli's

Market Square, Wicklow, Co Wicklow, tel: 0404-61333

Music: Piped pop classics

Facilities:Small but pretty

Wheelchair access: Only to the small number of tables downstairs

Food provenance: None

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