Restaurant review: Aniar, Co Galway

I’VE got to come clean, I did not expect to enjoy this meal — boy was I wrong. 

Aniar (‘out of the West’) “is a ‘terroir’ based restaurant” — terroir being the favourite word of French winemakers as it doesn’t have an English translation.

Terroir-focused Burgundy should taste not just of the grapes but the soil and the minerals in that soil, the sunshine and the rain that fell on the vine, and also of the character of the vine grower and the winemaker.

In a restaurant context this could mean anything from Killary Harbour Mussels to Scurvy Grass or dandelions picked beside the beach.

Don’t get me wrong, I forage for mushrooms and pick wood sorrel it but as a food-writer friend said to me once — “if something tastes amazing then somebody somewhere is growing it commercially, I’ve got better things to do on a Sunday morning than traipse through fields looking for bits of grass!”

Of course you have to forage for some things, like the milky sweet shaggy ink-cap mushrooms that I find on roadsides in Autumn, or the aniseed and almond-scented Prince mushrooms I pick in early September in Bushy Park in Dublin.

I forage for these because the former could not be cultivated or sold at markets as it disintegrates within hours of picking and the latter is just too obscure for anyone to bother.

But back to Aniar. You may notice the score below — I’m not sure I’ve ever given 9/10 for anything, or at least not anything I can write about in a family newspaper.

Yes there were dishes I liked more than others but this was a tremendously satisfying meal, focused, balanced, fun, and most importantly it all tasted wonderful.

Aniar was created by JP McMahon and Enda McEvoy (who now runs Loam in Galway) but it was Enda’s creative vision in those early days — JP was still best known for his excellent (and fun) Mediterranean restaurant Cava.

However, JP is now firmly at the helm in Aniar and he has a hugely talented team working with him — particular mention should go to his pastry chef Claire Conway who seems to relish impossible tasks set by JP (“make seaweed ice-cream”).

The menu changes daily, depending on what is available and the humour of the chefs, and includes hot and cold starters, sorbet, mains, pre-dessert and dessert.

Each course includes 3-4 items which are designed to complement or contrast, or provide focus for a main ingredient.

Suppliers are listed and are mostly local and excellent, including The Friendly Farmer in Athenry, Castlemine free-range pork and Sheridans Cheesemongers; foraging is also local where possible.

We chose an eight course menu (€85) but we could have gone with 6 or 10 courses for €70 or €105 respectively.

It would take three reviews to dissect the tens of dozens of flavours to be found in our meal, so I will merely try to give some of the highlights (there were no lowlights).

We began with some tiny crispy amuse bouche — pork crackling with a blob of cheese custard to soften the flavour and water cress to spice it slightly.

Dried cabbage leaf with dots of pork gel and an emulsion flavoured with burnt hay was next — the satisfying crunch and spectrum of flavours made these particularly successful.

Lamb croquette was a cube of breaded sweet lamb made a touch sweeter with a dab of onion marmalade and given a bitter twist with marigold petals.

We slathered Galway Hooker Stout brown bread with butter whipped with buttermilk and topped with crispy onions; the slow-cooked pork belly was given extra umami and sweetness with wild mushrooms, sea spaghetti (seaweed) and dashi flakes; a caramelised roasted onion was filled with a liquorice-scented cream and given a peppery nasturtium leaf for contrast.

Sweet but also earthy Parsnip and cider granita came with sea buckthorn berries and buttermilk cream; Nori ice-cream shouldn’t have worked but somehow the ozone and umami character mixed wondrously with the frozen cream.

So Aniar really is a ‘terroir’ based restaurant but I think the crucial bit is the human element that can take wild and crazy flavours like beeswax and rye, marigold petals and dandelions, seaweed and plain old garden weeds and render them sublime.

The Tab

Dinner for including two aperitifs, a bottle of wine, eight official small courses (and at least four complimentary ones): €220 (excluding tip).

How To

Open for dinner only Tuesday-Thursday 6-10pm, Friday –Saturday 5.30-10pm

The Verdict:

Food: 9/10

Service: 9/10

Ambience: 8/10

Value: 8/10

In a Sentence: Highly creative and focused modern cooking, charming and knowledgeable staff, a small but comfortable space and a highly diverse clientele – I just feckin’ loved it.

Aniar, 53 Lower Dominick Street, Galway,

tel: [phone]; www.aniarrestaurant.ie