Tom Doorley reviews Cafe la Serre, Lyons estate
Now the dust has settled, I want to touch on the issue of expensive restaurants. Many contributors to the letters page were outraged at the bill for my recent outing to Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud. A minority sought to put it in context, and I'm grateful to the e-mailer who pointed out that Brown Thomas has a waiting list for Hermès's Birkin bags, which weigh in at €5,000. Horses for courses and all that.
I mention this because I ordered a bottle of wine at Cafe La Serre, at the Village at Lyons estate, near Celbridge in Co Kildare, that weighed in at €79. I'm very rarely so lavish, but I had a shrewd idea the grub would be worthy of the wine.
And the wine was very special: a Saint-Aubin 1er Cru Les Combes. You can't quite spit from this vineyard across the N6 into La Montrachet, but you could almost throw a small brick. And La Montrachet's wines cost nearer to four figures than three in the average Michelin-starred restaurant. In a curious way, this represents value for money.
Anyway, the food was very much worthy of the wine. This is the secondary, rather less formal restaurant at Tony Ryan's lavish reconstruction of an old canalside mill village on his estate, where impeccable traditional plasterwork, fine paintwork and acres of Colefax and Fowler are augmented by an approach to architectural salvage that is, at best, eclectic and, at worst, occasionally incongruous. For example, Cafe La Serre occupies a Turneresque Victorian conservatory with a huge, old French fireplace - both magnificent in themselves, but odd bedfellows.
Both restaurants are run by Meath man Richard Corrigan, of London's Lindsay House and Bentley's Oyster Bar & Grill (and with whom I am about to collaborate on a book project). Currently the main restaurant, the Mill, is open only for Sunday lunch, but Cafe La Serre does lunch and dinner seven days a week. Since the restaurants opened, Corrigan has been a regular presence in the kitchen.
It takes the well-placed confidence of a man such as Corrigan to offer food of such exquisite simplicity in a development that is aimed largely at insecure Celtic Tiger cubs. On the day we lunched there I saw numerous young women wearing designer sunglasses (on a damp October day), all of whom appeared to have arrived in BMW X5s or Porsche Cayennes. My 11-year-old 4x4 looked like Worzel Gummidge on a Prada catwalk.
We kicked off with six Carlingford oysters, each tasting intensely of the sea and consumed with the faintest squeeze from a muslin-wrapped half-lemon. With perfect brown bread, this was as good as it gets. As we slurped the bivalves we perused the menu. I recommend this approach.
The partner larruped into a vast pot of moules mariniere, of which I managed to snaffle a couple of plump, salty, impeccable mussels with a creamy broth. My smoked-haddock risotto - using undyed fish, of course - with shaved Parmesan and a softly poached egg on top was equally perfect.
Fish and chips comprised a small fillet of haddock in perfectly crisp batter (within which the fish was cooked to the ideal point of moistness) with batons of spud that were armoured with a crunchy exterior but as soft as billowing clouds within. The ideal foil was provided by a tartare sauce crammed with salty, sharp, tangy capers.
The companion's fish pie was a masterpiece of simplicity: a glorious combination of white fish, salmon, prawns and scallops in a creamy sauce beneath a grilled potato topping. We shared an extremely fresh green salad, dressed with a sharp but nutty emulsion of olive oil, mustard and white-wine vinegar.
We also shared a wide, shallow creme brulee with just the right proportion of crisp, sugary topping to jelly-like, rich, decadent cream. With coffee and water, the bill came to €162, or €83 without the wine. tdoorley@irish-times.ie
Wine Choice
Chablis is €8 a glass, Sancerre €9, Côtes du Rhône €7 - and all of them from excellent small producers. The brilliant Savennières Domaine des Baumard, a mature Loire Chenin, is €56 for the 2000 vintage. Schlumberger's exquisite Grand Cru Pinot Gris 2004 is €58. The steely Domaine Vrignaud Chablis (€38) offers very sound value. Domaine Darnat Corton Charlemagne 2002 (€165) will probably be bought by property developers. Among the reds, Domaine de la Janasse Terre d'Argile Côtes du Rhône (€52) is meaty and delicious, Château La Conseillante Pomerol 1988 (€226) is like hen's teeth and Château Margaux 1983 (€710) is simply amazing. Château Lascombes 1995 (€180) is wildly overpriced - oddly, as the property is owned by Tony Ryan.