SOLE Seafood and Grill has a great reputation as one of Dublin's best seafood restaurants.
But when Harry Styles was seen walking in the door with his girlfriend Oliva Wilde back in June, it was suddenly the restaurant that everyone in the city was talking about. Located on South William Street, SOLE has been known to attract many famous faces since it opened it's doors in 2018.
The restaurant has even been awarded '‘Europe’s Best Luxury Seafood Restaurant’ at the World Luxury Restaurant Awards for the last three years. So with such a reputation, we decided we needed to try the restaurant for ourselves and confirm if it's worth the hype.
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As part of our visit we chatted to Culinary Director Richie Wilson about what makes the menu at SOLE so special. He told Dublin Live: "We have some of the best seafood in the world here in Ireland. I suppose writing a menu for a seafood restaurant In Ireland, the only difficulty you have is what do you not use."
So what is Richie's favourite item on the menu?
"The Dover sole is such a classic dish. I think if you have it once it's very hard to go back to anything else. It's just such a beautiful piece of fish and we do it so simply and so well," says Richie.
So we put Richie's speciality to the test and ordered the Dover sole as our main dish. Was it as good as Richie claims? In one word - yes!
Our wonderful waiter deboned the entire fish right in front of us - an impressive skill that takes hours of practice to get right. The sole was served with a simple buttery sauce that was so delicious you could happily eat it on it's own with a spoon. Not a single piece of fish was left on the plate by the end of the meal - like Richie said, once you have this dish you'll never want to order anything else again.
So what else did we try? There was a gorgeous seafood chowder for starter that was light yet creamy and full of flavour. The lemon tart, which is made up of lemon curd, fluffy meringue and a sweet pastry, was the perfect summery treat to finish off the meal.
And of course we couldn't resist a cheeky cocktail. The Sole Clover Club was made up of Bombay Gin, punt-e-Mes, Raspberry, Lemon, Sugar, Aquafaba - absolute heaven in a glass. The entire meal was perfection.
While the restaurant is very busy, no doubt thanks to the divine food, the atmosphere is cosy and very friendly. The service is top class with friendly staff who are attentive, chatty and helpful - as Richie says, everyone who comes into the restaurant is treated like a VIP.
To book at table at SOLE you can visit their website here.
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