The Oar House Restaurant

The West Pier in Howth is scattered with a range of fish shops and restaurants. The Oarhouse Restaurant is nestled in amongst this stretch of seafood extravagance.

The brainchild of John Aungier, of Casa Pasta fame, The Oarhouse serve the freshest of fresh fish, simply and sympathetically cooked in our open plan kitchen. I addition to our menu, each day our specials are based on the catch that day, giving our customers the opportunity to sample seafood as it should be.

We are open from lunchtime seven days a week until late and look forward to seeing you soon.

"but really fresh ingredients, a sympathetic hand and not too much added, and hey presto, a meal fit for a king. This was the case today, perfectly cooked scallops, succulent prawns, peppery rocket and the tang of the pumpkin all drizzled with a lime dressing. Wonderful." Gerard Carthy, Tastofireland.com.

Paulo Tullio Review - January 2007

I liked the Oar House. I liked its approach to cooking fish and the result was well done. Obviously a printed menu can only carry fish that you know for sure you can supply, but if you go here be adventurous - eat of the daily specials list. We finished off with a couple of coffees and got a bill for €93.65, which I felt was good value.

When is fish fresh? Well, obviously when it's pulled gasping and flapping from the sea. But can you and me get fresh fish? The answer is not surprising. You can if you're a fisherman. If you're not a fisherman and you get your fish from a shop, then bear in mind that modern trawlers spend weeks at sea before disgorging their catch in port. They didn't catch all their fish on the last day. The fish they caught at the start of the trip are kept on ice until the trawler finds port.

People who care about the quality of what they buy prefer to buy their fish from day ports. They're ports where the boats go out in the morning and return in the evening. They're smaller boats, of course, but the fish they land is as fresh as you can get. On the dockside the fish are sold, but the interesting bit is where they go from there.

Countries that appreciate fish, like Spain, France and Italy, are prepared to pay top euro for fish as fresh as this. Every day their agents outbid our national fish distributors for the best fish, and every day the pick of the Irish catch goes off to the continent. You and me never get a sniff of it - at least not here. If you went to Vigo in Galicia you could find high quality Irish fish, though.

All of which means that the Irish consumers' choice of fish is limited. Our restaurants tend to list the same fish: salmon, sea bass and cod, plus prawns, mussels and crabs. Apart from the cod and the crabs, all the rest is farmed and is therefore readily available. Having a constant supply of fish is clearly important for restaurants, but the variety is depressingly limited for the consumer.

Just possibly as the oceans become denuded by overfishing and the price of fish starts to rise, we might just begin to appreciate what a great food it is. We still expect to pay nothing for cod, even though it's getting rare. You wouldn't expect to buy a panda steak for a couple of euros, so why cod?

So when Gerard Carthy told me he'd found a good fish restaurant in Howth I was keen to go with him and try it. A fish restaurant on the quays where the fishing boats land is standard all around the Mediterranean. The catch is displayed at the door as you walk in and you pick what you fancy. That's not what happens in the Oar House - be careful how you say that - but the menu is heavily fish orientated.

It was busy enough when we went in, there's a raised dining area on the left and in front of you there's an open plan kitchen where we could see the chefs at work. At first I looked down the menu and sighed. It had the bog standard listing of salmon, prawns and crab each in a variety of flavours and styles - the sort of limited fare I've just been complaining about. That was when Gerard said ‘And there's that as well,' pointing to a board. Ah, at last. The catch of the day, fish not farmed but from the sea. Three fish were offered for main courses on the board: hake, halibut and gurnard. Settled then; halibut for Gerard and gurnard from me. Now all we had to do was choose our starters.

The menu gives you a choice of size for each dish - you can have a starter portion or a main course portion. All the starter portions cost under €10 with the exception of the crab claws, and there's a long list to choose from. Gerard picked the prawns in a garlic and chilli and I picked the crab cakes. Now I've very rarely been happy with crab cakes; more often than not they come to me as dry, tasteless patties so I was curious to see what The Oar House could do.

Since I was driving and Gerard drinks very little the wine choice was easier than usual, a half carafe of house wine at €10.50. A couple of half bottles of mineral water at €2.75 completed the drinks order.

Just when I wondering whether to ask for some bread, it arrived and we settled in to wait for our food. I was well pleased with the starters when they came, the prawns were cooked just right and my crab cakes were tasty, crispy and still surprisingly moist - definitely a cut above the normal.

Now it's an adage of mine that of you have really fresh fish, the less you do to it the better. In the words of Curnon Ski, ‘let it taste of itself' - a piece of advice that doesn't always get followed. It did get followed here. Both the halibut and the gurnard were cooked to perfection and were served with simple cream sauces that let the taste of the fish shine through. It wasn't just the cooking that pleased me, I was really happy to find a fish like gurnard on the menu. It's a fish that you'll find readily enough on the Mediterranean shores, but it was good to find it on an Irish menu. Basically any addition to the tiny list of fish that you tend to find on menus here is an improvement.

I liked the Oar House. I liked its approach to cooking fish and the result was well done. Obviously a printed menu can only carry fish that you know for sure you can supply, but if you go here be adventurous - eat of the daily specials list. We finished off with a couple of coffees and got a bill for €93.65, which I felt was good value.