Superb Dining At Westport's The Pantry & Corkscrew

Superb Dining At Westport's The Pantry & Corkscrew 

The Pantry & Corkscrew is a little gem, though hardly a hidden one, right in the heart of Westport. If you want freshly made food using the very best local ingredients, with an interesting bottle of wine or local craft beer, then make this your destination.

Here, you’ll get the warmest of welcomes from Dermott and Janice who take pride in using as much local organic and free range produce as possible from the land, earth and sea. 

Arancino

Listed among their suppliers are Joe Kelly Organic Vegetables, Andarl Farm Outdoor Pigs, Kellys of Newport, Starcrest Seafood,  Aran Island Goats Cheese, Achill Island Sea Salt, /Mescan Brewery, Killary Shellfish, K&C Norton, Wines Direct, Sysco, The Apple Farm, Coffee.ie, Faherty, Wholesale and Wild Wines.

There’s a tempting range of starters with a couple of specials as well and included Naturally Smoked Atlantic Haddock Croquettes, King Oyster Mushroom, Braised Irish Beef Rib Empanada, Andarl Farm Shredded Ham Hock Cashel Blue Cheese; Puffed Rice Crusted Tofu. 

In the end we settled on one of the specials. Glad that we did as the Arancino filled with Mozzarella & Salami Napoli, with Tomato & Basil Sauce and Fresh Rocket, certainly lived up to its special billing. We were up and running with that. 

They carry a range of the local Mescan beers and we each had a bottle of the Seven Virtues Lager to start with, full of flavour and refreshment. Later, I would move on to the Mescan Old Brown (thanks to Dermott pulling out the last of the batch). I knew I was on a winner as I’ve had a few over the past year or two. Talking about patience, this is matured in oak barrels for more than two years. Well worth waiting for!!!

I had enjoyed a Schnitzel a month or so ago in Kerry and when I spotted one on the menu here, my mind was made up, especially since I saw the pork was coming from the local Andarl Farm. The full description was: Herb Crusted Andarl Farm Free Range Pork Schnitzel, Pancetta & Parmesan Cream, Potato, Fennel and Butternut Hash. Crispy and tasty, full of flavour and texture and the potato and sauce enhanced the whole dish. A big thumbs up for this one.

Desserts

And it was the same from the other side of the table where CL was delighted with her Oven Baked Herb Crusted Fresh Irish Hake with Killary Mussels, Haricot Beans, and Creamy Tomato Seafood Sauce. Full marks all round here for the fish and all that came with it, all perfectly cooked and presented.

No sharing dessert this time, though there were generous tastings exchanged. One, with a little encouragement from our server, was a Melon Semifreddo (from the specials) and the other, spotted early on, was the Normandy Apple Pie with House Vanilla Ice Cream.

It is a small narrow and comfortable room where the warm welcome is an indication of things to come in this cozy place where good food and drink and chats and smiles are the order of the day. Very Highly Recommended.

It is not just me. Recently, they won the Award for Best Emerging Irish Cuisine at The Regional (Connacht) RAI Awards.

More on the Pantry and Corkscrew on their website here 

Also on this trip

Superb Dining At Westport's The Pantry & Corkscrew

Achill Island in the sun. And wind.

Sipping Mescan Beer. Doolough Valley.

Ballycroy National Park

Impromptu Dinner Stop at Radisson Little Island

Impromptu Dinner Stop at Radisson Little Island

At the end of a day long road trip last week, a quarter of us popped into the Radisson in Little Island for main dish. This is at least my third time there this year and it has always worked out well. Well priced food and an increasing emphasis on Irish produce.

Mayo's Andarl Farm is one of the Irish producers that pop up on the menu and a colleague enjoyed one of their excellent Pork chops. The Maple Glazed Pork Cutlet came with Sautéd greens, spiced carrot and grain mustard reduction and went down very well indeed (all for a reasonable €15.50). I forgot to take a picture of that one!

PANFRIED HAKE AND ALSACE BACON

Wild mussel and white bean cassoulet with Saffron Cream was

my pick. Could have done with a few more beans but overall this was a most satisfactory main dish. Indeed, the impromptu pit-stop worked out

very well indeed. Quite a wide range of choices here. By the

way, the changeover from daytime to evening menu happens at 5.30pm

CHICKEN SUPREME AND

BRAISED THIGH CHASSEUR

Forest mushroom, plum tomato, tarragon

Cream potato. Another excellent plateful, with a really good chasseur,

was well appreciated by two of our group.

Radisson's Brasserie Features Irish Producers. Andarl Farm A Star

Mayo's Andarl Farm A Star

Radisson's Brasserie Features Irish Produce 

Andarl Farm. Masterfully executed dish.

With many restaurants, mainly because of staffing difficulties, choosing not to open on Mondays and Tuesdays, its becomes more difficult to find meal on those days. The solution, for us, on a recent Tuesday, was the nearby Radisson and its Brasserie. The sun was shining as we arrived and the car temperature (it had been parked facing the sun, was some 27 degrees!.

Indoors, in the large Brasserie, it was much cooler; they had doors and windows open. It was on the cusp of a menu change when we arrived. We worked off the lunch menu; had we waited 20 minutes longer, we would have had the dinner menu in front of us. Perhaps because of the changeover time, service was a little slow, nothing serious though and it was well up to standard when extra staff arrived as dinner-time approached. All by the way were friendly, helpful and efficient.

Another ace dish, this time the chicken shines in a superb sauce.

I had already checked the menu online and had put my eye on a dish featuring the produce by Andarl Farm, the Castlebar home of Velvet Pork that has been making a name for itself in restaurants around the country. There was a fairly similar dish on the evening menu.

Anyhow, I ordered the Roast Bacon Cutlet (Andarl Farm pork, Sautéed greens, spiced carrot Grain mustard reduction, all on cream potato). And I did hit the jackpot! Right on the money with amazing flavours and texture, superbly executed and very neatly presented indeed. Nothing redundant here, all the elements, including the mustard and veg, played a role and all that was left was a very clean bone! Well priced too, I thought, at €15.50.

Chicken Supreme and Braised Thigh Chasseur (19.50) was CL’s dish.  It was served with plum tomatoes (some puréed, some whole), forest mushrooms, silver skins onions, Tarragon cream and creamed potato. Quite a plateful! More or less half a chicken, good quality and lifted by that gorgeous sauce, the only downside being that the two whole baby carrots could have done with a fraction longer in the pot.

Moretti. Not bad at all.
Would have preferred
a local craft beer.

They have a nice selection of sides including Salad, Creamed potatoes, Skinny skin on chips, Roast root vegetables, and  Cheesy garlic bread. We did share a tub of the chips and they were just perfect.

Aside from Andarl Farm, they do support quite a few Irish producers including Ardsallagh, Hegarty’s, Mozzarella from West Cork, Gilligan Farm beef, West Cork beer (in their batter), Loughnane’s of Galway, and their cheese board is a selection from West Cork. They say: All our beef, chicken and pork is of Irish origin unless stated otherwise.”

The Drinks List features a terrific selection of local gins: Beara, Bertha’s Revenge, Cork Dry, Method & Madness, Mike, Kinsale and Míl. So I was hopeful that they’d have an Irish craft beer especially when I saw two by Franciscan Well listed. But they didn’t have either of those and that was it. 

Studied the list a bit further and I eventually settled on a bottle of Peroni (which I’ve seen praised by one of the top American beer writers recently). So my server went and came back, again empty-handed. No Peroni! At least, I knew now that they had Moretti as CL had one in front of her! So I settled for that well known Italian beer. They’ve been making it since 1859 so they must know a thing or two about it. And I was indeed well pleased with it, its flavour and refreshing qualities, especially on such a lovely warm evening!

Really well pleased overall with the comfort of the place, the friendliness of the staff and the quality of the food.

Everett’s Vaulting To Culinary Peaks. New Waterford Dining Destination

Everett’s Vaulting To Culinary Peaks

New Waterford Dining Destination

Cod

Ireland’s love affair with wine has left a legacy of wine vaults. Some have been converted and are now being used as restaurants, Ely in Dublin and Holy Smoke in Cork spring to mind. The latest are Everett’s in High Street in Waterford who are using the 15th century vaults of a local mayor. 

James Rice gave this wine vault and the dwelling above it to Dean John Collyn on the 6th July 1468 and it was used to house the priests of the new chantry chapel built by Collyn until 1520. Now Everett’s, just opened a few months back and already gaining quite a reputation, are using the building for their 58 seater restaurant. The street level room seats 28 while the vaults below cater for 30.

Knockalara cheese

 It is quite an atmospheric place, especially if there’s a party going on downstairs! But no great point in having a historic venue for your restaurant unless the food is good. And that’s where chef Peter Everett, who owns the restaurant with partner Keith Noonan, comes in. 

The Chapter One trained chef, back in his native Waterford, is using the best of local produce and using it well. Beautifully cooked and presented plates are flying out of the kitchen and the customers are flying in. The menu is short but long on quality.

Rilletes

Three courses here will set you back forty euro. Let me be clear. It is not a set back, it is great value considering the high quality. And I reckon the Pre-Theatre menu is probably even better value. You may like to know that they do lunch on Fridays and Saturdays (not on Sundays).

We called there recently and, after an initial “set back” about the reservation, we settled in and throughly enjoyed the accomplished cooking and the service from start to finish.

beef

 We had five starters to pick from and one was the Knockalara Sheep’s Cheese with pistachio, baby artichoke and roasted red pepper. The cheese, made by Agnes and Wolfgang Schliebitz in West Waterford, was the centrepoint of a delightfully delicious dish.

Our other starter was the Andarl Farm Free Range Pork Rillettes, Cherry, Beetroot and Almond. Another winner, again beautifully presented, a gorgeous toothsome combination. Needless to say, two empty plates went back. And that was to be repeated, twice!

mash

I think there were five mains on for the night and mine was the Striploin and Braised Brisket of Derek Walsh's Beef, Carrot cooked in Ale, Spring Onion. The local beef was spot on, even the carrot in ale was a highlight.

Meanwhile, the CL was happily tucking into her Fillet of Cod, N'duja Crust, Courgette, Samphire, Sherry Sauce. The shimmering cod looked as if it had just been plucked from the ocean outside Dunmore East. And the mash was smoother, certainly more buttery, than an electioneering politician’s words.

Chocolat

Now for the real sweet stuff, the chocolat! At least, pour moi. Opera Chocolate Fondant with Malt Ice-Cream had me singing, well metaphorically so, for I was the class crow, not even allowed in the group - no bum notes allowed in Mrs Shaw’s chorus. 

And there were happy notes coming from across the table as the Fresh Peach Purée, Raspberry and Elderflower combo struck the perfect balance, the Peach on the sweet side, the Raspberry on the tart. Quite a finalé at Everett’s. Just opened in the spring, they may be in their infancy but the stride is already confident, the outlook good.

Also on this trip:
The Candied Hazelnut

Lunch at Spectacular Cliff House

Everett's

22 High Street

Waterford

(051) 325 174