Some of the best dining in Limerick city is to be found at No 1 Pery Square
In The Sash restaurant at No 1 Pery Square, a welcoming and attractive room is flush with bustling early Christmas cheer
- The Sash at No. 1 Pery Square
- No 1 Pery Square,
- Georgian Quarter,
- Limerick
- oneperysquare.com
I am in Limerick for just 24 hours, on a specific task, but where there’s a belly, there’s a way, and I’m dipping my snout into the ever-improving local food trough at every opportunity.
There’s a bone-sucking damp cold abroad, so a bowl of Sabaw, from Filipino cafe Dasco Deli, a beef bone ‘tea’, slow-cooked with onions and ginger, served with fresh coriander, provides healing just shy of entry into heaven itself, and only a cold soul could resist the racy allure of bright purple Ube (purple yam) cake, chased down by a double espresso.
Wickham Way Market is a fine and funky new arts and crafts market growing organically in a cluster of former warehouses on Wickham St, where quality craftmanship is supplemented by food trucks and stalls. Pick of the bunch is The Salt Project, chef Caomhán de Brí’s advance signalling of his more ambitious bricks and mortar hospitality operation, opening next year, in Co Sligo.
His locavore philosophy and excellent sourcing marry well with sound technical skills and culinary creativity, certainly a chef to watch for in the future. Prátaí are gorgeous croquettes of Gubbeen chorizo and potato, with fresh winter truffle mayo, and he welds a Chinese staple to good old-fashioned home cooking, reimagining free-range Irish roast chicken as steamed dumpling, with roast potato, crispy stuffing and herb garden jus, primal comfort flavours assuming a delicious new mantle.
The Milk Market is hands down the most handsome market in the country, a serious national contender in terms of selection and quality of produce. I roam far and wide, assembling a mighty larder, finest purchases coming from Olivier Beaujouan’s On The Wild Side, whose superb charcuterie is the best in Ireland, and Lucy Deegan’s game-changing Ballyhoura Mushrooms.
Finally, immersed in the edible treasure trove of Country Choice food store, I have to be separated from my wallet before damage inflicted is terminal and I could sorely use a mule to bring all my bounty back to base camp, No 1 Pery Square Hotel.
Patricia Roberts’ exquisite restoration of a corner building on Pery Square that is now home to No 1 Pery Square Hotel began in 2008 when the area was bleak, rundown and downright unsavoury, and she was an early pathfinder for the remainder of the neighbouring Pery Newtown Georgian Quarter, finally to be also regenerated under the upcoming Living Georgian City project.
It is one of my most favourite hotels, enjoying one of the quarter’s loveliest aspects, gazing onto a serene People’s Park as it softly slips into nocturnal winter slumber. Meanwhile, upstairs in The Sash restaurant at No 1 Pery Square, a welcoming and attractive room is flush with bustling early Christmas cheer.
Ms O, my longtime ‘culinary chaperone’ on Shannonside, has seared prawns with black garlic emulsion and chilli jam. The robust Asian-style flavours are probably better suited to the coarser textures and flavours of these imported Tiger prawns than to their more ‘refined’ and frankly always better Irish counterparts, but the import-export balance is handsomely redressed with local garlic and ginger, grown by Kevin Wallace, of the splendid Urban Leaf Farm, in Ballyneety, Co Limerick, where Wallace also converts the former into highly potent black garlic. A singular Wakame salad with nice bite adds cleansing marine umami.
My Rillette of pork cheek, with crackling ‘popcorn’ of pork skin, and salsa verde, piccalilli and burnt apple jam, is another smashing starter.
My main, Burren Lamb, rump cutlets and belly — as a very more-ish croquette — is from top local butcher, Michael O’Loughlin, in turn sourced from his brother’s farm, in Co Clare. The depth of flavour is more redolent of hogget than spring lamb and all the better for it, though fat on the cutlets should have been further crisped and rendered to release more flavour into the flesh. Roasted squash, red wine jus, mint and whey dressing complete another great winter comforter, while a generous side dish of roast root vegetables and potato gratin would sate an army.
Ms O’s pan-fried breast of Thornhill duck is well-cooked, tender, sweet meat. Alongside, a beetroot medley, including pickled and juice reduction, delightful puy lentils — it is the pick of the two mains.
Our Blaufränkisch (Roka 2017) is actually made by Mayo-based wine importers, and increasingly accomplished winemakers, Liam and Sinead Cabot, in their Slovenian vineyard, and is flush with dark berries and fresh acidic minerality, good with the lamb, quite perfect with the duck.
Ms O’s pleasant Olive Oil Spiced Sponge comes with dark chocolate mousse and olive aerated chocolate and orange syrup, while a well-selected Munster cheeseboard is flanked by mixed pickles, crackers and excellent house-made apple membrillo jelly.
Roberts has turned her little hotel into one of the best independent boutique operations in the country but it is only since Limerick chef Keith Piggot arrived that food began to meet the standards that prevail in all other aspects of the operation.
The Sash at No 1 Pery Square is now one of the best fine dining options in the city, much of the improvement down to Piggot’s kitchen leadership and construction of a menu featuring excellent local suppliers and allowing that premium produce to shine.
To then hear he is leaving is a disappointment but our most enjoyable meal tonight has been courtesy of sous chef Alex Timms who takes over as head chef in the new year.
Piggot is stepping back in order to pursue other outside interests, but he’ll continue in a consulting role, mentoring Timms in the near future, and while Piggot will be missed, Timms appears to have all the right stuff, the culinary chops and desire to prosper and I’m looking forward to watching that next chapter of No 1 Pery Square unfold.
