Restaurant review: Lisdoonvarna's Roadside Tavern does familiar food, fabulously
The Roadside Tavern, Lisdoonvarna
- The Roadside Tavern
- Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare, V95 T85K
- Tel: 065 707 4084
- https://theroadsidetavern.ie/
- Open: Serving food on Tuesday-Sunday, 1pm-9pm (+ regular pub opening)
Though The New York Times is this esteemed newspaper’s junior by a full decade, it must be conceded it may well have the edge on the Irish Examiner when it comes to spending power, in particular the depth of purse that allows its restaurant critic to dine on three separate occasions to truly get the measure of the establishment they are evaluating.
A single dining experience — ideally with at least one other guest; better again, three or four — should always be sufficient for a decent critic to establish if a restaurant is good or not, whether a restaurant is hitting its own marks, but repeat visits will often clarify just how good the restaurant actually is and there are times when I’d love another bite of the cherry, literally as well as metaphorically.
Entirely by accident, it is precisely what I wind up doing at The Roadside Tavern (TRT) over a splendid weekend in the wonderful Clare village of Lisdoonvarna, where I first ventured in 1983, to attend the much-storied music festival in the year it descended into a chaos from which it never recovered though I departed with an abiding love of the town and hinterland.
Work on the first day means I miss breakfast entirely and brunch has also clocked out by the time I turn to the belly. With a Michelin-starred evening at Homestead Cottage ahead, I’m loath to tamper with appetite but my fingers are beginning to look far too tasty.
Walking past TRT in mid-afternoon, I ask after a bowl of soup, anticipating something rustic, wholesome and healing, not least when I hear soup of the day is humble cauliflower.
I never order soup in a restaurant; now I think regularly of returning to Lisdoon specifically for TRT’s cauliflower soup.
The following evening at the Burren Slow Food Festival Banquet in TRT’s dining hall, the kitchen delivers a very smartly achieved fine dining menu of local produce, with tender, pink Burren lamb an especial triumph.
By Sunday, trepidatious sunshine has turned into mini-heatwave and while the flag-stoned interior of the landmark traditional Irish pub, in situ since 1865, is a cool respite, we’re still squeezing several months of rain from our bones and are determined to sit outside until we overdose on vitamin D or desiccate entirely.
A red ale brewed yards away in TRT’s micro-brewery is a marvellous thirst-quencher with which to peruse the menu but, to be honest, my investigations are token and desultory, even bypassing very tasty sounding daily specials of fisherman’s pie or grilled lamb cutlets, for I’ve my heart set on the house showstopper.
The ‘Ultimate Seafood Platter’ is served on a three-tiered stand more commonly used for traditional afternoon tea, a witty delivery for a seafood smorgasbord of exquisite bounty.
On the ‘ground floor’ are the cold dishes: Burren Smokehouse smoked salmon and smoked peppered mackerel along with four cracking Flaggy Shore oysters, all delightful.
Then, on ‘level two’, crisp fried calamari neatly straddle the point of perfection between tender and chewy, either way, wildly and compulsively addictive.
What’s more, they are surrounded by sinfully delicious crab claws smothered in a glistening rich sauce of garlic butter and white wine.
Finally, on the ‘top floor’, succulent and deeply flavoursome crisp fried scampi are paired with fillets of battered fresh haddock, fried to a golden crunchy crisp, the pearl-white fish within cooked to immaculate perfection.
Alongside is very good tartar sauce, garlic mayo, and excellent twice-cooked chunky chips. It is a mighty feast, and the Mermaid and I are in heaven for the next half hour.
A lacklustre sauvignon blanc from an anaemic wine list fails to keep up its end of the bargain but that could be easily remedied and a half decent bottle to wash down this tower of marine magnificence in gorgeous North Clare sunshine would further enhance its credentials as one of the meals of the year so far.
TRT has been in the Curtin family since 1893 but was leased to chef Peter Jackson, late of the Armada Hotel, in Spanish Point, who arrived with grand ambitions. However, fate had other ideas.
After first making it crystal clear we have no issue whatsoever with offering a safe haven to refugees and asylum seekers, and that raising populations in rural Ireland is a good thing, state implementation of the process has never stretched beyond addressing the primary problem, invariably neglecting to consider possible negative impacts.
Lisdoonvarna’s population of around 900 has more than doubled since the beginning of the war in Ukraine which has meant losing most of the hotel beds in a town that has long relied on tourism, in turn putting a significant dent in Jackson’s aspirations.
Instead, he has had to revert to a casual menu of familiar mainstream dishes.
To his credit, while the old faithfuls of Irish casual dining may be short on innovation, you’ll travel far and wide to match Jackson’s impeccable delivery of same and, with those divine crab claws still in mind, it’s worth remembering the overly familiar can still be truly fabulous.
- Food: 8.5
- Wines: 3
- Service: 8.5
- Value: 9
- Atmosphere: 9
- The bill: €80 for the Ultimate Seafood Platter, which easily feeds three (excluding drinks, tip)
