Declan Raggett, head chef at the Leixlip House Hotel, Leixlip, Co Kildare. Photograph: Frank Miller
Apart from locations for special occasions, Co Kildare appears to offer its residents little by way of choice for average common-or-garden dinners out, although, as more and more people transform Kildare into a dormitory for Dublin, it is likely that things will change, and the Leixlip House Hotel, in the centre of the swiftly-developing village of Leixlip, is one of those places which shows the way ahead.
This is a handsome building which houses a small, but expanding hotel. In its head chef Declan Raggett, and his sous chef, Sean Hicks, the Leixlip House Hotel boasts fine, uncompromised kitchen talents.
Raggett has enjoyed spells in some special kitchens, having worked with Pat Moore in Dingle's Beginish, spent a time working with that young masterchef William O'Callaghan in Longueville House, near Mallow, as well as doing a stint with Nico Ladenis in London. These are all highly individual, headstrong cooks, and Declan Raggett's food shows the stamp of an education in which flavour is favoured over everything.
In a starter dish of timbale of tomato and goat's cheese mousse served on braised fennel and sundried tomato the mousse had a rich, sweet complexity, while the presence of the fennel and the sundried tomatoes was just right as a foil for the sweet flavours.
The caesar salad with garlic croutons was dressed with their own caesar dressing and a snowstorm of slivered Parmesan. It was a brilliant conceit of a dish, the perfect leaves of cos lettuce collected on top of one another as if to form a savoy cabbage shape. It could not have been better.
The menu offers an intermediate dish between starters and main courses - pear and apple sorbet; green leaf salad with pine kernels; chicken and mushroom soup - but we went straight into two splendid dishes of grilled scallops on chive potato with a fresh herb salad and a cognac and shellfish sauce, and roast fillet of turbot on buttered spinach with deep-fried leeks and a rosemary flavoured butter sauce.
The scallops were smashing, the little coins balanced on top of smashed herby spuds which gave the smooth, sweet shellfish a lovely contrast, an array of flavours which the collection of salad leaves on the plate further congratulated.
The fish, likewise, was firm and flavourful, the spinach fresh and lively in flavour, the leeks and the rosemary butter sauce judged just right. This is true, modern, restaurant cooking that shows both confidence and maturity, and it is a far cry from what one tends to expect of a country hotel.
Desserts included a creme brulee flavoured with coffee and brandy which packed a mighty, rousing punch thanks to the booze and the brew. A rather fine poached pear with a spiced cream cheese was simple and just right, showing that the chef doesn't try to throw his hat into the ring with every dish.
Dinner costs £24.50 in the Leixlip House Hotel, and you can have two courses for £19.50, including tea or coffee.
The dining room could do with some fresh thinking, regarding its style, its awkward entrance, and the positioning of music speakers.
These are simple things to get right, but they are important, for Declan Raggett's cooking deserves the best space it can get. With a slightly improved space and less formal service, the Leixlip House Hotel could blaze a mighty trail for good food in Kildare.
The Leixlip House Hotel, Captain's Hill, Leixlip, Co Kildare, tel: 01-6242268, fax: 01-6244177. Open: Mon-Sat, 12.30-2 p.m., 7- 10 p.m.; Sun 12.30-4 p.m., 7 p.m.- 8.30 p.m.