'Ireland's Leading Hotel' Adare Manor is home to a restaurant as thrilling as a trip to the circus
There are many reasons for visiting a restaurant. You might simply be hungry, too tired to cook, you might want to taste something new and excite your senses, or maybe you just want to be minded. Some restaurants however are as thrilling as a visit to the circus or the opera and it is in this last category that I would place The Oak Room in Adare Manor.
This month, Adare Manor was named ‘Ireland’s Leading Hotel’ for the fourth successive year in the globally renowned World Travel Awards 2021, and it is no surprise if their restaurant is anything to go by.Â
Now I should warn you that this is formal dining, do not, for example, expect to be allowed to pour your own wine (my bad!). But if you still have some lockdown savings left and are looking for some culinary excitement, then The Oak Room is for you.
Chef Michael Tweedie and his team have scoured the island in sourcing their ingredients for which they deserve much praise. There were too many flavours to mention and I could write a whole column on the bread course and the snacks, so just brief mention then of the salty-sweet Galway Goats Cheese Choux Bun and the Chicken Liver parfait in pastry topped with black truffle shavings which satisfied all my senses (it even made me tingle).
Wild Boar Consommé deserves a full page. The elegance and purity of this consommé was a thing of wonder and contrasted beautifully with the punchy parmesan raviolo at its base. Had the restaurant gone on fire at this point and only sourdough bread and soup could be served for the rest of the meal, we would have been very happy.
Goatsbridge trout fillet had been poached in rapeseed oil to add a nutty, grassy hint and had some buttermilk whey, pressed cucumber and trout caviar to cuddle up to. The star of this show however was the fragrant and intense grating of West Cork grown wasabi root atop the trout - it transformed the dish.
Beef fillet had been cooked rare over coals and topped with some silky smoked bone marrow, and this was rounded out by sweet musky notes in the truffled jus underneath. Squash in whole and purée form added contrast as did perfect Champ mashed potato topped with puffed crispy potato shavings - if only Mr Tayto could find a way to sell these in a bag. The Star of this course however was the inch long cylinder of meaty rich oxtail.
Pre-dessert of dried (or dehydrated?) fermented blackberries with freeze-dried yuzu yoghurt woke up our senses nicely. This was helpful as by now I admit we were rather full - we were wise to stick with the shorter Market menu.
Dessert of coffee and (Tainori Valrhona single estate) chocolate tart was served with a creamy salty almond ice cream on the side and was perhaps the only course that didn’t completely work for me. The intense roasted (almost, but not quite, burnt) flavours in the tart jangled my senses a little, but I’d happily have eaten a tub of the salted almond ice cream.
The Oak Room wine list is one of the most comprehensive in the country and contains wines from many of the world’s great producers and includes some historic vintages (e.g. Ch. Lynch Bages 1945 for €2,200 and Ch. Montrose 1982 for €550). There are just a couple of wines on the list priced at less than €50 which I think is a pity, and I’d like to see some orange and ‘natural’ wines added.
As we were on the tear, I chose Domaine Tempier Bandol 2014 from Provence (€95), a wine myself and the Engineer have been drinking since the 1990s. This actually represented a bit of a bargain given the quality of the wine and it didn’t disappoint with the earthy red fruits working well with the Autumn flavours of truffles and squash and especially with the Boar consommé. The satiny texture and the perfumed blackberry and cherry fruits in the wine coped well with the trout, were a pleasing complement to the rare beef, and even coped with the fermented blackberries in the pre-dessert.
Some mint tea and petit-fours finished off the meal but I confess we saved the sweeties for the following day as we could barely move.
The Oak Room is a gorgeous, sensuous and thrilling place to dine. Perhaps a little more formal than will be to everyone’s taste, but go with the flow - I recommend that you all go and treat yourselves.
Wednesday-Sunday: 6 pm-9.30 pm.
- €120 per person (a 10-course Signature Menu costs €160 pp)
