Inhabiting a unique space that has been home to several restaurants over the years, Osteria Lucio feels very much at home in The Malting Tower’s low-lying cocoon beneath the railway bridge at Grand Canal Quay. The cosy yet bright room makes clever use of this unusual arched space. Seats are smart and comfy, the neutral colour scheme stylish and, while the windowless vaults of the main restaurant require artificial lighting, the front area by the bar and wood-fired oven is flooded with natural light. Outdoors a generous covered pavement terrace looks onto the quiet cobbled street where the only disturbance is the rumble of overhead trains. A table here makes a great fair-weather alternative to the cosy vaults of the main dining room.
Osteria Lucio is a joint venture between chef Ross Lewis – who founded and headed the kitchen of Dublin’s iconic Chapter One for three decades, and where he is still co-owner – and front-of-house manager Robert Scanlon, with the mentorship of their mutual friend and esteemed Italian chef Luciano ‘Lucio’ Tona. Their menu focuses on authentic Italian recipes, seasonal ingredients and pristine artisan produce: for example, bruschetta with mortadella, crisped kale, red onion, tallegio cheese sauce and a top-drawer balsamic showcases just how sublime a good mortadella can be – and what a great chef can do with the best ingredients. Returning diners will enjoy being greeted with familiar and generous special touches like their signature skillet of warm olives baked with orange peel, fennel and rosemary, served direct from the wood-fired oven on arrival.
Since handing over the Chapter One kitchen to Finnish chef Mickael Viljanen in 2021 (see separate entry), Ross is personally cooking at Osteria Lucio and applying his trademark precision to new menu additions to keep things fresh and seasonal for regular guests. The best of these come across as utterly uncheffy yet effortlessly pitch perfect, the kind of dishes a semi-retired Michelin-starred chef might cook for you in their own home: a textbook ossobucco looking glorious on its bed of saffron risotto with gremolata, sweet carrots and broad beans popping like jewels, perhaps, or house-made orecchiette with fresh shiitake mushrooms, broad beans, violet artichoke and a parmesan stock – a deceptively simple pasta dish in which each element is allowed to shine and the result becomes so much more than the sum of its parts.
Ross has also been getting creative with the wood-fired oven. The pizza offering still gets the five-star treatment here – the Margherita, for example, features Macroom mozzarella, cherry tomato, fresh basil and Fèlsina 1st press 2018 extra virgin olive oil – but has been somewhat pared back to make way for the likes of enormous and pristine gamberos al forno, served very simply on a skillet with finger-licking flavours of pink garlic, herbs and white vermouth to make the peeling a pure pleasure, with hearty nduja bruschetta for unmissable moppage.
This new front-of-house cooking role also allows Ross to enjoy that other personal gift he has mastered over the years: charming diners with his natural gift of the gab. This easy charm is mirrored on the floor with warm and confident service delivered with that happy assurance of unflappable professionals who love what they do.
For dessert, the house tiramisu is especially luxurious and, as you’d expect, they serve excellent coffee. Meanwhile a well-curated Italian wine list balances some nice opportunities to blow the budget along with plenty of well-priced entry-level and mid-point choices and some intruiging choices by the glass. A newly extended cocktail section includes some clever twists on spritz-style cocktails, such as their Coastal Spritz, a unique collaboration with Skellig Six18, gin, created by Darren ’Stan’ Hogarty, former pastry chef at Chapter one, featuring a seaweed ginger syrup, green Chartreuse, lemon juice, sea salt and soda water.
A word to the wise: go easy on the albeit delicious bread-based dishes early on as portions are generous; resist treating the antipasti like starters, these are dishes made to share; and resign yourself to the fact that this is a restaurant that will leave you anticipating your return visit.
