Restaurant review: Clare eatery offers a meal as comforting as an old country pub
Joe McNamee: Just as an aroma travels straight to the brain, evoking memories and associations, an old country pub has a comfort-laden sense of coming home, mixed with a giddy rush of the unknown and how the evening might unfold.
If I could bottle the feeling I sometimes get when crossing the threshold of an old country pub for the first time, especially on a cold, dark night, such as this, I’d both wear it as a perfume and gulp it back like eau de vie.
Just as an aroma travels straight to the brain, evoking memories and associations, an old country pub has a comfort-laden sense of coming home, mixed with a giddy rush of the unknown and how the evening might unfold.
That food is also on offer only turbocharges the sensation — I mean, is there anything better than settling into a fine old pub for the night, knowing you don’t have to budge an inch but just let a few pints of fine porter construct a ravenous appetite?
That feeling hits me entering Vaughan’s Anchor Inn in Liscannor. A low, wood-panelled ceiling concentrates intimacy; the bar, along one wall, is festooned with club pennants, a football-themed Mardi Gras float. Fine porter, menus for perusal, and the brother-in-law (BIL) and I are almost sniggering like skiving schoolboys.
The BIL grew up further along the coast, with the sea as his front garden, yet has never eaten an oyster. I order New Quay Sweeney dainty oysters (€20), with coriander and Vietnamese dressing, but ask for the dressing on the side. The oysters are cracking: Fresh, succulent, nutty cucumber notes surfing the marine umami. I guide the nervous oyster virgin through his first experience. Tentative before tasting, he is pleasantly surprised.
I immediately administer a second before he has his bearings, essential practice to convert a novice. Better again, he acknowledges. We try them with the dressing. It is decent, but all good oysters are best eaten entirely naked. We do so until the plate is cleared.
BIL’s slow-cooked ham hock croquette (€16) is a crisp coat for tender, toothsome chunks of deep-pink pork, a slab of roasted foie gras perched on top, its opulent, creamy fat an extra layer of indulgence. Piquillo pepper sauce and quenelle of tangy apple and pear chutney sing sweetly from the sideline.
Despite options of beef fillet and venison, I am only ever going to dine from the sea tonight. As my guest, BIL gets first call for main course: Vaughan’s fish and chips (€26), cooked exactly as it is in their sister restaurant on the prom in nearby Lahinch, which proudly bears a national reputation for the quality of its excellent fish-and-chip supper.
With batter from a decades-old starter recipe, the haddock is deep-fried to a golden crunch that gives way in shards to sweet, steaming-hot fish. It sits proudly on a generous portion of hand-cut chips, served up on a sheet of faux-newspaper, chipper-style. The chips are local spuds, peeled, hand-cut, and steamed, before being deep-fried in beef dripping. The flavour-packed, amber, crisp exterior conceals a piping-hot and fluffy white interior. Tartare sauce and pureed peas complete a compulsive classic.
My slow-roasted black sole on the bone (€45) is a well-cooked piece of prime fish, firm yet succulent, but it has to work hard to assert itself amid a boisterous crowd of companions. Sauce of toasted hazelnuts, capers, and chicken butter velouté is well achieved — a good balance to its trenchant trio of flavours — but in such quantity that it entirely overwhelms its more delicate piscine partner.
Rustic, spiced carrot-parsnip mash and creamy potato puree are decent, if not quite divine, sides. The wine list is an old-school classic French collection, and a Bourgogne Aligote (Frederic Leprince, 2021; €58) serves us well; clean, floral, with a structured finish.
BIL and I are cut from the same cloth when it comes to comforters. We agree vanilla crème brulée (€12) with shortbread is a non-negotiable and it works well, even if the custard could use a little more wobbly delicacy, rather than the thick cream on show here. The mention of banana-bread-and-butter pudding (€12) with Bailey’s custard and vanilla ice cream has our eyes out on stalks.
Sadly, it falls flat on its face. Base flavours are sound, but the bread-egg assemblage is lead-heavy, claggy and compacted to that point that, while highly unlikely, I wonder if it has been made with sliced pan.
Overall, it is a good meal, and a wonderful evening with excellent service. Young chef James Vaughan, third generation in the family business, can cook and assemble flavours well. In time, I’m sure he will learn a good dish depends as much on what you leave out as what you put in.
Then, he will be a very good chef indeed. And I look forward to that threshold once more.
- Dinner for two, €189, excluding drinks
- Visit: vaughans.ie
