Restaurant review: This Galway gem has some of the finest fine dining in Ireland

Lignum's chef-proprietor Danny Africano’s cooking harks from the minimalist school: ‘bass notes’, those deep, plangent flavours, are used sparingly; mid-range and treble, his most preferred area of expression

Joe McNamee: "And if you’re already licking the stamp for the envelope addressed to Pseud’s Corner, let me state it in plain terms: Africano cooks quite superbly; delicious, balanced, singular dishes, of real character and originality, some of the finest fine dining to be found in the country."

Lignum, Slatefort House, Bullaun, Co Galway

Our rating: 9.5/10

It is a 25-minute drive out of Galway to its rural hinterland in the east to reach Lignum but the destination is more than worth the effort, a stunning space of raw stone, exposed timber beams and glass walls that peer out onto the gardens and growing spaces for the kitchen’s larder. 

In early March, barely a bud in sight, it is still possible to imagine the visual impact during the height of summer’s bounty.

We begin our lunch with amuse bouches. First, cream, mussel, lyme grass, combines a freshly steamed Killary Fjord mussel with local cream and oil from foraged coastal lyme grass, liquorice root from the gardens grated on top, a clean, bright marine umami. 

Ginger, clam, chilli, sees pulpy reduced ginger and chilli adding a gentle glow to savoury clam. Black garlic, venison, attica, is a tartare of aged venison, smoked in hay, in a black garlic tartlet. Pickled fennel seeds echo the tender meat’s sweet notes; Attica vinegar ‘curdles’ smoked cream. 

Almond milk, langoustine, lardo is a stunner, near creamy langoustine singing of the sea, draped in sheets of melting house lardo. Slivers of smoked preserved strawberries add sweet counterpoint and faint acidic intrigue. Nutty, sweet pressed almond milk is like a comfort blanket underneath. Good house sourdough with cultured butter is an elemental contrast, rugged textured crust, warm, pillowy crumb, a lactic kick to the rich butter.

Kylemore Cheese, pacchero, ragú sees waygu beef, pork and tomatoes as a rich, fennel-forward ragú, piped into a tubular pacchero pasta shell, then sheathed in caul fat to retain shape as it is slow roasted in the wood-fired oven, browning, crisping, served up in airy Kylemore Cheese sauce. It makes for compulsive eating, perfectly mimicking the aimed-for chewy, browned crust of well-roasted lasagne.

A delicious piece of red mullet is allowed space to express itself. An accompanying sauce of head meat and cheeks is slowly rendered over hours to release complementary gelatinous flavours, the exotic refrain of rhubarb root and olive oil reining in excess.

Kingsbury waygu sees well-salted meat near blackened over flame, then cut into tender slices, lush with rendering fat, topped with grill-blackened kale tips. Rather than a heavy, meaty jus, the accompanying ‘sauce’ is tomato water, a sweet acidity that elevates the meat’s muscular flavours.

The petit fours at Lignum make the heart sing. Amalfi lemon is a sweet citric joy, a mousse of Velvet Cloud yogurt, and candied Amalfi lemon peel shaped as a miniature lemon, down to the authentic lemon-yellow cocoa-butter shell. 

Chocolate, Cashel Blue, coffee is a glistening, dark, mirror-glazed quenelle, a highly creative signature dessert. It works superbly, chocolate and coffee hum the bass notes in the register, while an emulsified salty-sweet mousse of cheese, cream and white chocolate soars into the upper register.

On an extended professional run around the country in recent weeks, I dined at a multiplicity of restaurants. Some were very good indeed, innovative in their creativity, yet I marvelled at how many eventually wound up in the same pedestrian cul-de-sac when it came to petits fours, usually featuring pâte de fruit, chocolate truffles and something in the caramel line. In other words, ‘posh sweets’.

The petit fours at Lignum make the heart sing. Amalfi lemon is a sweet citric joy, a mousse of Velvet Cloud yogurt, and candied Amalfi lemon peel shaped as a miniature lemon, down to the authentic lemon-yellow cocoa-butter shell. 

Truffle, cep, hazelnut is ridiculously good, an ice cream infused with autumnal fungal flavours, topped with black truffle, yet the innate potency such a combo suggests is deployed with immaculate restraint. A miniature sfogliatella riffs on the larger Neapolitan breakfast pastry, crisp pastry filled with house ricotta. It is pleasant and fun but rather eclipsed by its two companions. 

As above, I regularly reach for my own culinary synaesthesia when assessing the balance of a dish, breaking down flavours into bass, mid-range, and treble, successful dishes employing a balanced mix of all three.

Accordingly, chef-proprietor Danny Africano’s cooking harks from the minimalist school: ‘bass notes’, those deep, plangent flavours, are used sparingly; mid-range and treble, his most preferred area of expression, an ethereal trilling with plenty of space between notes, an elemental sketch that perfectly captures the definitive essence of a dish or even ingredient. 

And if you’re already licking the stamp for the envelope addressed to Pseud’s Corner, let me state it in plain terms: Africano cooks quite superbly; delicious, balanced, singular dishes, of real character and originality, some of the finest fine dining to be found in the country.

Service under Africano’s partner, Molly Keane, is highly professional and pretty faultless, though perhaps the performative formality might be pulled back a tad, especially for Irish dining audiences naturally inclined to favour a more relaxed delivery, even at Michelin-star level.

In fact, my only complaint of any substance about Lignum goes back to music, specifically the background music, an anodyne and vacuous house muzak more suited to a generic high-street pastiche-jewellery franchise, than to one of the very best and most original restaurants operating in Ireland right now. And, that’s not really much of a complaint at all.

• Lunch for two, without wine: €184
• Visit: lignum.ie