Restaurant review: Waterford's Mara packs potential to make huge waves

It is a glorious summer’s eve as the Foleys and I enter Mara (Irish for sea), a bijou cube one street back from the quays, so ‘bijou’ it is set up for 18 diners at most. 

Floor tiles are near-black; walls, ceilings, most fixtures and fittings are painted matt black but discreet low lighting and radiant sunshine streaming through the large window bestow serenity and calm on a surprisingly welcoming space.

On Saturdays, Mara serves only a tasting menu (€100 pp), divided into Savoury World and Sweet World, but first we are served miso butter and a ‘muffin’ of brown bread. 

Each is excellent but the molasses-rich bread leaves the butter’s subtler umami in the shade. Plainer bread, and butter would sing; this bread only requires plain butter.

Savoury World’s eye-catching opener is Spicy Cheese Flower, an intricate rosette of batter baked to a crisp, forming crunchy ‘channels’ into which is piped a smooth cream of Laughing Cow cheese, fiery spikes of jalapeno emulsion spotted across the top.

Laughing Cow is the UK version of La Vache Qui Rit, the French foil-wrapped triangles that introduced many a child to ‘cheese’.

Bland, rubbery, it is a processed take on Chaumes, soft cow’s milk cheese from South West France, but here callow cheese underwhelms, whereas a cheese of real flavour, perhaps a ‘local hero’ such as Smoked Knockanore, would turn a decent dish into a firecracker.

Best Part of the Chicken, according to chef/proprietor Luis Martin, equates to the liver. While I’d make a case for the oyster, Martin’s chicken liver parfait settles the argument, in crisp pastry shell, topped with nuggets of dried apricot, clinches the contest, especially feather-light parfait, sweet, savoury, humming with astringent thyme.

Spanish Omelette presents as a tasty filo pastry micro-cone filled with potato, egg and onion, then sauced with a fulsome acidic emulsion. 

The Iberian theme continues with Cod Buñuelo, confit cod mixed with creamy bechamel and fried in puffy, crackling Orly batter, topped with black garlic emulsion — it’s a smashing rendition.

Mushroom French Toast hits like a heavyweight, a flurry of trenchant flavours — exotic mushrooms, oil, butter, garlic, herbs, shavings of Grana Padano — lands with bruising impact.

Scallops, Vadouvan Bisque, Artichokes sees good scallops, well-cooked enjoying the companionship of a fine bisque inflected with ‘curry-ish’ notes of the Breton spice blend though soft, supple texture of artichokes is insufficient to either contrast or complement.

Confit Cod, Vizcaina Sauce is a classic from the culinary canon of the Atlantic coastline of South West France (Vizcaina is Spanish for Biscay) and North West Spain. 

Pristine poached cod is served with a gorgeous and grainy sauce of sautéed onions, choricero peppers, bread and the fish’s cooking liquor. 

It is my favourite of the savoury section, even more than the very fine Blanquette de Poulet that follows, immaculately poached chicken breast in a creamy, flavoursome sauce energised by bright notes of dill.

White Asparagus ‘Viennette’ kicks off Sweet World, a playful retooling of Viennetta — the ‘ice cream loaf’ of the 1980s. 

It is brilliantly achieved, clean, fresh flavours of asparagus permeating a divinely textured and quite delicious ice cream that keeps sugar on a commendably tight rein, bitter cocoa notes, a bracing counterpoint, so this ‘dessert’ also serves as a palate cleanser. 

Very more-ish Corn Truffle Ice Cream follows, undeniably dessert despite an umami undertow.

I generally shun petit fours, as a straight-up sugar hit of confectionery is not my preferred closer, but here they are baked comestibles, two of them, quite excellent. 

Classic canelé de Bordeaux sees sticky chewy shell housing lush, moist interior, shimmering with vanilla and rum; brown butter financier has such becoming mouthfeel and flavours, I could eat it forever.

The vaulting epicurean ambition afoot in Mara is very apparent. It is also remarkable.

To paraphrase Churchill, never has so much been cooked by so few for so many: Martin plus one in the kitchen; pastry chef Natalie Brennan also running front of house solo. 

That they hit their marks so often is remarkable under such tight restrictions but it also means they, at times, fail to do so.

Tasting menus are tricky. (Á la carte is only a week-night option.) Not only does each individual dish have to be nailed but its relationship to all other dishes is a major consideration. 

Here, the first three dishes incorporate similar crisp pastry elements that saw any novelty wearing off by the second; and the big, bold, meaty flavours of mushroom toast rather muffled the palate in advance of gentler seafood dishes. 

The wine list could also do with revamping, too staid for the offering it is intended to complement, the success of nearby Union Wine Bar & Kitchen illustrating a local appetite for a more adventurous wine experience.

The menu’s sweetest spots combine Martin’s obvious talent and Spanish culinary heritage, with his Irish experience (formerly head chef at Waterford Castle) and premium Irish produce. 

Real clarity of purpose and a pursuit of elegance in simplicity would maximise as yet untapped potential and see Mara turn the tide to make the big waves which it is so eminently capable of creating.