Restaurant Review: A warm welcome from this fine Lady

The dinning room at Restaurant Lady Anne.

• Restaurant Lady Anne
• Creamery House, Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny
• Tel: [phone]
• www.restaurantladyanne.ie

A cold snap of wintery weather is beginning to bite as I write this review. In a way this seems appropriate, as I’m about to try to describe perhaps the warmest restaurant dining experience I’ve had all year.

Chef Keith Boyle and his wife Carmel opened Restaurant Lady Anne in Castlecomer in 2019, Keith in the kitchen (on his own), and Carmel in charge of front of house and the wine list. The restaurant is in a beautiful room in the recently restored Creamery House which was built in 1802 by Lady Anne Wandsforde, Countess of Ormonde, easily the most striking house in this pretty town.

On arrival, we were greeted with tangy (and crucially not too sweet) complimentary Aperol Spritz, and served our first amuse course of what was to be a long, but balanced tasting menu.

A fried pomme dauphine puff filled with Hegarty’s cheddar fondue was our first mouthful of the evening followed soon after by some good foie gras with smoked eel sitting on a disc of pâté brisée. Both dishes worked but I wonder could they have had a little more punch to wake up our palates at that stage of the meal.

Next came a demitasse of Crown Prince pumpkin velouté enlivened with spikes of horseradish from the garden, and a pleasing hit of curry from some Kari Gosse Breton spice mix. From here on the meal began to hit its stride; the velouté was indeed velvety and that touch of curry reminded me of what curry chips should taste like but sadly never do.

Next came a soft egg yolk cooked in a sherry vinegar caramel, topped with potato mousse, with flavours rounded out by some chicken skin and a slice of black truffle. This is Boyle’s signature dish and we scraped those eggs clean, but I wonder if taking the sweetness back a tiny step would make it even better. Crusty and textured pain de campagne was as good as it gets but the star of this course was the intense cultured butter; I’d have eaten it on its own without the bread.

Sea bream caviar ceviche

The exquisite butter fed into the next course where the buttermilk had been used to add creamy lactic acidity to a loose interpretation of a Leche de Tigre sauce (‘Tiger’s Milk’, traditional Peruvian marinade for making ceviche) that lifted and balanced some line caught Sea Bream. The bream had been brined in a dashi to cure the fish and decorated with blobs of salty-sweet Daurenki Caviar, flowers, herbs, and pastry stars.

A strikingly beautiful dish, it was the course of the evening for me thanks to its balance of flavours, all the elements interacting like newly reunited lovers. A two-star, or possibly three-star dish.

Seasonal Wicklow venison was served two ways, first as a rich ‘Bourguignon’ with King Oyster mushrooms and a celeriac cream and next as venison loin served rare with Crown Prince Pumpkin (from nearby Durrow), sweet and pickled beetroot and a richly flavoured jus which had been subtly enriched with dark chocolate.

A muscovado sugar and malt whiskey tart for dessert had a good blend of sweetness and earthy malt notes and was offset by some toffee apple ice cream, resulting in another clean plate.

Muscovado and Malt Whiskey Tart

The wine list has been properly thought out, with a solid mix of classic wines. Our Casa Ferreirinha Douro (€40) was savoury and rich and a good match for the venison and the richer sauces.

Staff on the night managed to be both brilliantly professional and completely charming, remembering which of us was drinking sparkling water, attentive but never intrusive, and well-versed in each of the dishes served.

Keith and Carmel have created a thoroughly charming restaurant that is ‘worth a detour’ as the saying goes. The cooking is precise and generous, and there is a delightful warmth here, not just from the crackling log fire.