Kerry: Panorama Restaurant, Killarney
I ONCE knew a splendidly-mustachioed man dedicated to the study of the vast tribes of mites colonising Atlantic seabirds. His monkish dedication was as boundless as his inability to explain why the subject so absorbed him was complete.
After all, how might a person first discover that the lives of these almost invisible organisms — even if you are on friendly terms with a well-travelled gannet — warranted a lifetime’s study? What leap, what connection does a person’s curiosity provoke, so that an otherwise perfectly normal person entombs themselves in what seems a remote and possibly irrelevant mission to study the obscure? But we must be thankful that so many do, how else would we discover anything? One man’s mite is another man’s passion after all.
Some areas of research seem pointless even before they are undertaken though, more statements of the bleedin’ obvious than journeys into the dark unknown.
Recent work that confirms the environment in which we eat food or drink, say, a glass of wine influences how our senses react, how our taste and smell perceive flavour hardly seems on a par with Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928.
It does not seem wildly unsupportable to suggest a puntilla-sharp Albarino and some splendid fish would be better enjoyed in a calm, cliff-top restaurant than they might be in a noisy, canteen in a tractor factory on the Volga.
Though on a slightly different tangent, findings published by the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the California Institute of Technology seem cut from the same cloth.
They found that if a person is told they are tasting two different wines — one costing €15 and the other €60, even though they are the same wine — the part of the brain that experiences pleasure becomes more active when the guinea pig drinker thinks they are enjoying the more expensive vintage.
Surely we’re not that shallow? Well, maybe we are.
And what better place to put those theories to the test than in the Panorama Restaurant at Europe Hotel and Resort in Killarney. The setting is magnificent, the service five-star and if you are susceptible to having the pleasure of something enhanced by it being expensive then you’d be in the right place.
The dining room comes straight out of the Architects’ Big Book of Big Hotels but the view is of an entirely different order. It takes in Lough Lein and the McGillycuddy Reeks and is one of the very best seen from any dining room on this island. As environments go it could not be much better or more likely to open the heart to pleasure.
The food is not outrageously expensive but if you enjoy things more, the more you pay for them, this is a good place to start to fine-hone that particular talent.
DW opened with duck liver and foie gras mousse with pickled pistachios and raisins, spiced grapes and truffle meringue and it was excellent, different, beguiling and thoroughly enjoyable. I chose from the other end of the spectrum and really enjoyed a simple, clean chicken consomme with smoked chicken. Its simple loveliness seemed a perfect match to the simple loveliness all around.
For her main course DW enjoyed pan-fried turbot, shallot chutney, squash puree and Connemara ham. I had a duo of Kerry lamb — roast rack and braised shoulder — with bean cassoulet. Both dishes — €33 each — were entirely grand and it would be wrong to criticise but they were hardly remarkable. Not even the splendid vista could make them memorable. Desserts were pretty and enjoyable. The wine, a lovely Girgondas Vieux Clocher, Arnoux & Fils, would taste fine on the banks of the Volga. It came from the value end of the wine list but cost €43. Exactly.
Europe Hotel’s Panorama Restaurant is just one part of a very large jigsaw and as hotel restaurants go it is of a high standard and in a great setting. It may not be for everyone but as my mustachioed friend proved everyone likes what they like.
Dinner for two, three courses with wine, coffee and tea came to €148, tip extra.
Seven days but best to check with hotel
Food: 7/10
Service: 9/10
Ambience: 7.5/10
Wine: 8/10
Value: 6/10
