Uno Mas review: ‘Plan ahead for payday and book in — you won’t regret it’

Over the past 12 months, it’s become ever more apparent that you can spend as much on a meal in a mediocre restaurant as you will in a good one — the majority of their costs are the same; it’s what they do with the ingredients and how they treat their staff and customers that makes one shine over another. 

So, taking my lead from those well-meaning advice columnists, I’m encouraging you to make sure that any money you spend in restaurants in the year ahead is considered. That if you are going to eat out less often, make sure that when you do, you minimise the risk of buyer’s remorse afterwards; that you leave feeling your money has been well spent. If everyone did this, chances are that more of the restaurants which deserve to survive what’s going to be a tough year will make it through. 

That means doing your research, planning ahead and being an informed consumer, giving proper consideration to the nature of the businesses you want to benefit from your hard-earned money, rather than choosing restaurants that take shortcuts with their food, have a high turnover of staff, or care more about how they look on social media than they do about your experience as a customer. 

And, just as many of us made a conscious effort to support local independent businesses with our Christmas shopping, let’s apply the same rationale to the choice of the restaurants we eat in during 2023. Irish-owned independent restaurants are also more likely to be supporters of local farmers and producers, and to be less reliant on imported ingredients, so supporting them is a double win.

Which brings me neatly to my first review of the new year, of a restaurant to which I awarded my (totally subjective) Restaurant of the Year award last month. I didn’t intend to review it, but my husband had a booking and the person he was going with cried off. As I find it impossible to resist the prospect of an impromptu lunch at Uno Mas, here I am on a counter stool (high but solid and comfy) ordering a cocktail while looking over a menu, which, though familiar because I eat here often, is always scattered with tantalising new dishes to tempt me away from those I find hard to pass by. Co-owner Paul McNamara is on the pass, manager Cian Lynch on the floor. There is comfort in familiar faces. 

Because you can’t come to Uno Mas and not order gildas, we begin with a couple of those, all salty anchovy and briny olive, and then the Cantabrian anchovies (did I mention I like anchovies?) with salmorejo (essentially a cold, thick tomato soup, much tastier than the description sounds) and crisp toast. Salt-baked celeriac with smoked ricotta, hazelnut, truffle and lovage oil is subtle, complex and restrained, while venison fazzoletti — the silky pasta sheets resemble silk handkerchiefs — dusted with Parmesan is meatily delicious, the ragu intense and deeply flavoursome.

I’ve ordered the mushrooms with slow-cooked egg, Jerusalem artichoke and chestnut before, so I know what to expect — a dish as rich and satisfying as any meat option — while the salt-marsh duck with yellow carrots, beetroot and almond dukkah is as elegant a plate as you will find in any fine-dining establishment. We have the fried potatoes with marjoram and garlic butter (I urge you to follow suit) and the January King cabbage with crumbs of Ibérico belly and mustard (ditto). Dessert is really a bridge too far but we do it anyway: a dark chocolate crumble with dulce de leche and banana milk ice cream, along with a cheese plate of Délice de Bourgogne, aged Manchego, Fourme d’Ambert, lavash crackers and quince.

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Mushrooms with slow-cooked egg, Jerusalem artichoke and chestnut

With an Amontillado-based cocktail (Uno Mas’s cocktails are not sweet, hurrah for that), a vermut and a bottle of Fabien Trosset ‘Terre d’Origine’ Mondeuse d’Arbin 2020 from the Savoie (€58), the bill comes to €215.95 before tip.  Plan ahead for payday and book in — you won’t regret it. 

Uno Mas, 6 Aungier Street, Dublin 2. unomas.ie

Budget
Jamón croquetas, Cáis na Tíre agnolotti and flan de queso will cost you €39pp.

​Blowout
A three-course dinner with snacks, starters and the Delmonico sharing steak could cost €160 for two before drinks.

​The rating
9/10 food
10/10 ambience
9/10 value
28/30