Borgo
Phibsborough's Osteria Locale
Borgo is an Osteria Locale and the good news about Phibsborough’s newest destination is that it nails that shape-shifting Italian concept right on the nose.
Osterias are simple places for simple food and local wines, and Sean Crescenzi and Jamie McCarthy have gotten both the concept and the execution just so. The Italians would say that Borgo is giusto: just right.
On a run-of-the-mill Monday night, every table is taken by 8.15. The mix of punters is fascinating: there are three solo male diners, reading their phones and getting prepped for tomorrow morning’s conference/key-note speech/drive-by shooting.
There is a party of eight women over near the bar, and a family group of six shoehorned into one of the semi-circular banquettes. Next to them are a trio who behave as if polyamory and the art of the throuple is alive and well in Dublin 7.
Next to us an Asian couple are sharing the famed gambas before they tear into the pasta course, and beside them is a family group of three. A dad and his son are at another table, and there are a scattering of couples and quartets.
The staff move easily from table to table, serving and pouring, the music has that light touch and steady rhythm which Italian jazzers bring to the tradition, the kitchen team do their stuff in open view and it all feels like someplace in… Testaccio.
Welcome to Phibsborough, Dublin’s Fifth Quarter. They even know to list the red wines first.
Now, about those gambas. This is the dish that catapulted Borgo from zero to hero in double-quick time. The dish is even patented – Gambas alla Borgo – which shows that the team knew they had a widowmaker on their hands.
The quartet of shellfish is bathed in garlic, chilli and lemon and after being flashed under a hot salamander it arrives on the chafing dish with a doorstep of focaccia.
It’s a killer. Heads and tails are left on, the shells are prised from the centre, and there is a wedge of lemon on the plate. It’s messy and magnificent and should actually be served with a little dish of water and lemon so that you can clean your hands after you have sucked the heads dry, fiddled about to get the last morsel from the tail fin, then used your fingers to wipe the dish clean.
Last time you had something this good and this messy you were eighteen months old and your chair was made of plastic and had restraining straps.
There are three other antipasti – burrata; calamari; arancini – but for the foreseeable future Borgo is going to be busy shelling gambas and sending them out to this big, friendly room. Just like Bang’s tortilla Cal Pep and Lena’s pici cacipo e pepe, this is one of the defining Dublin dishes in 2026, the tastiest rites of passage.
So, where to after The Borgo Big Bang? There are a trio of dishes from the woodfired grill – skillet baked hake; venison with pumpkin sauce; bavette with carrot purée – and a quintet of pasta dishes offering flavours from malfadine with Kilkeel crab to barley medaglioni.
The hake came in its super-hot skillet, the fish founded on creamed leeks with pancetta, a brace of sunchokes and a breadcrumb topping. The fire had done its work nicely, the fish was fleshy and just right, the sauce rather rich, but the sunchokes would have been better had they been peeled.
A little salad of leaves was sourced from Abercorn Farm, who Borgo utilise along with other food heroes like McLoughlin’s butchers, Glenmar seafoods, Mark the mushroom butcher, Ballymakenny spuds and Velvet Cloud yogurts. These are A-list dudes, and it shows the kitchen’s serious chops.
Of the five Dolce choices, there is an intriguing bruléed Durrus cheese which is served with house focaccia crostini. The tried and trusted benchmarks of tiramisu and boozy affogate are there, along with an Alaska with barley gelato. We went for the orange polenta cake, which had seasonal red wine pears, vanilla mascarpone and crisped almonds. It was a lovely cake, nice and light, the pairings playing their part to perfection.
Borgo is giusto: just right. The vibe, the mood, the bricolage style, the modesty, the professionalism and the food and wine all work in lockstep. It’s a class act, a new star for the Northside.
Related:
