Crackbird Dublin: The Verdict

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

And so, the verdict on Crackbird, Dublin’s latest pop-up restaurant on Crane Lane in Temple Bar, brought to us by the good people of Jo’Burger?

We came, we saw, we ate – it was AMAZEBALLS.

There is an emphasis on sharing and communal eating here, and as our waiter (although waiter almost seems too formal a word for the laid-back set-up) explained, the more you buy, the cheaper it all is. So a whole skillet fried buttermilk chicken shared among two (€17.95) is better value than a half chicken (€9.95).

Same with the booze. There are lots of lovely non-alcoholic drinks available but if you’re out for the evening, Crackbird have wine by the glass or bottle as well as cold bottles of Pilsner, which you can buy by the bottle (€4.25 per bottle), in four packs (€4 per bottle), or by the crate (€3.75 per bottle). All basic economics, I’ve been told. For the numerically dyslexic like myself, however, it’s simply wondrous.

The vibe seems to me to be a place to hang out, have a few beers, and enjoy some chicken. I don’t know of any other restaurant in Dublin that actually encourages customers to hang out. Do you?

There are 54 regular seats in Crackbird apart from the now famous #tweetseats. If you’re on Twitter, you can request a booking for between 2 and 8 people for a time and a date between now and the 22nd of May to @crackBIRDdublin. If there’s an availability, they will slot you in and you and your group will eat chicken for free.

Unbelievably, we enjoyed all of the delicious chicken you can see if the pictures below for free because we were sitting in the #tweetseats. Our total bill at the end of our lunch was €20.95 for the four beers and our (ah-mazing) red velvet cake. If we had sat in one of the 54 regular seats and paid for our lunch in full – which we will be back to do asap – it would have come to €42.55 for everything. Which I think is still very good value for what we got.

To break that bill down, it was €9.95 for our half chicken, €4.95 each for semolina chicken crunch and the chilli chicken crunch both including one dip, €1.75 for slaw, €16.00 and €4.95 for the cake.

So, it’s relaxed, the food is good, there’s cold beer, Beach House on the sound system, no apparent pressure to move on out of your seat to get more business in. I’m guessing that as long as you buy a bucket of chicken and a few beers, you’re welcome to hang tight for a while longer than in your average restaurant.

There were two points that work against this otherwise brilliant pop-up, however. The main one is that the chicken is not free-range, although it is all traceable back to a small co-op farm made up of seven farmers in Cootehill, Co Cavan.

The other is that if you wanted to bring a veggie friend, their only option is to eat the side dishes. Now, we only had the slaw but it was gorgeous. So, if your veggie friend is adaptable, it might work for them to order a few of the sides and the carnivores in your group chow down on fried chicken.

Apart from that, it’s a great place to hang out. So get down there asap before 22nd of May when it will disappear forever! That is the nature of pop-ups after all.