Restaurant review: The Glasshouse is a truly special experience in a garden centre
Fish crumble: Paired with a simple salad of local green leaves, succulent fish rests languidly in elegant creamy velouté dancing with the bright anise of dill, while buttery, golden garlicky bread crumbs add textural crunch.
It’s probably only keen gardeners of long standing and considerable vintage who can recall a time when a ‘garden centre’ was a ‘nursery’, solely of interest to the green-fingered — but these days it can be hard to find one without at least a cafe and ever more elaborate offerings of interior and exterior lifestyle ranges that often have little at all to do with gardening.
Certain of these new models embrace the revised format with gusto, the finest example being Petersham Nurseries Cafe, in Britain, which has a restaurant sited in a lovely glasshouse, where Australian chef Skye Gyngell earned a Michelin star in 2011.
As a garden centre, The Pavilion has pedigree: a family business market gardening for nearby Cork city since 1932. The indoor cafe space is underwhelming but The Glasshouse Restaurant to the rear is a joy on a fine crisp autumnal morning, sunlight streaming through soaring glass walls and roof onto tables surrounded by green ‘walls’ of lush foliage.
The Brother opts for spiced cauliflower and chickpea korma crafted with a judicious hand, temperate spicing, balanced and flavoursome. Optional buttermilk chicken is tender and juicy and an exemplary side of wild rice sports real taste and texture, too often a stodgy, glutinous afterthought in other lesser establishments.
Still sloughing off the aftereffects of the previous night’s elaborate tasting menu dinner, I have no urgent requirement to take on ballast and fish crumble reads well. It presents even better on the plate.
Paired with a simple salad of local green leaves, succulent fish (poached salmon, smoked salmon, hake, prawns) rests languidly in elegant creamy velouté dancing with the bright anise of dill, while buttery, golden garlicky bread crumbs add textural crunch.
The dessert menu reads as sweet and simple, old school comforters. As TB is currently off the sugar, I take my post-prandial coffee as Salt Caramel Affogato: Glenown Ice Cream with espresso and Belgian Chocolate Cookie. Ice cream is nice, coffee is disappointing and cookie is excellent and that might well have been that until later that evening looking back on the menu, I properly register a line at the bottom advising that diners might also request a ‘bakery menu’.
Had my earlier oversight ended there, I would have unwittingly deprived myself of experiencing The Pavilion’s secret weapon: the craft of master baker David Matues.
In fact, Matues was the primary reason I had even returned — a previous visit featured an unmemorable meal. After we finish today’s lunch, I snaffle a selection of his breads and sweet treats from the cafe, where they feature prominently, especially on the sandwich menu.
Breads are superb and cakes, baked desserts and patisserie are quite sublime; gorgeous buttery croissants, bread and butter pudding elevated by dark Belgian chocolate, extraordinary Chocolate Orange Torte and a savoury ‘Cork-ish’ pasty, short pastry made with beef dripping, housing slow-cooked beef shin, that would more than hold its own on The Glasshouse menu — which, by the way, really should feature more of Matues’ breads. Sourdough with cultured butter would make a fine rustic starter and a gourmet sandwich special or toastie, an excellent lunch.
Since the last visit, the menu has received an Irish bistro-style makeover, renewed precision applied to delivery, making for some quite delicious dishes. The hand behind this recalibration is chef, David Rice, whose consultancy work and encouragement of an already solid kitchen team has raised standards substantially.
Rice did serious time in Michelin-starred Chapter One, then taught for several years in Dublin-based Cooks’ Academy before moving to Cork to work as head chef in Ballinacurra House, outside Kinsale, where he also runs their boutique cookery school and is as good a teacher as he is a chef.
There is still work to be done. Apart from frontline workers, the pandemic has impacted on Irish hospitality more than most other sectors. That, in turn, has damaged service standards and staffing levels and while our own server does Trojan work, the restaurant’s overall model struggles at times. Also, the drinks list (various Proseccos, three whites, a rosé, one solitary red and three zero alcohol beers) appears to be entirely geared towards ladies-who-lunch. And bog-standard coffee in a county hosting some of Ireland’s finest roasters is a poor servant to Matues’ superb baked comestibles.
But with Ballinacurra House up for sale, there are murmurings abroad that Rice’s current working relationship with The Pavilion may evolve into something more permanent. I, for one, am imploring the universe to make that happen because the already thoroughly enjoyable Glasshouse Restaurant has all the potential to become a truly special dining experience.
- The Pavilion Garden Centre & Cafe, Myrtle Hill, Ballygarvan, Co Cork, T12 YD28
- thepavilion.ie
- Opening Hours: Mon-Sat, 9am to 5.30pm; Sun, 10.30am to 5.30pm
