Restaurant Review - VM Restaurant
Wednesday 03 April 2013
When chefs have reached a certain level of skill and proficiency you know, provided they are on the bridge during your visit, that you are unlikely to receive a less than perfect plate. So it was on our recent trip to VM restaurant in Longford where Chef Gary O’Hanlon was captaining the ship at full steam. Donegal man, O’Hanlon, has been featuring both on TV shows over the past couple of years as well as in the R.A.I. Restaurant Awards.
VM Restaurant is part of Viewmount House, a lovely country house owned by Beryl and James Kearney, so you also don’t have to stagger very far to your bedroom after you have wined and dined in style. We’d previously had Sunday lunch there but we were curious to see O’Hanlon’s performance in the more formal evening dining arena when he would be displaying his all as it were.
Dinner at €53 includes all the bells and whistles of Amuse Bouche, Middles and Petit Fours. Everything was executed to exhilarating perfection with care and thought for presentation and flavour combinations. Starters included quail breast Cordon Bleu style with confit leg and thigh, incorporating Serrano ham, Glebe Brethan cheese, burnt cauliflower, cauliflower Mornay and cress. Risotto of chicken leg and thigh confit combined leek, butternut squash, Shitake mushroom, Glebe Brethan cheese and scallion, whilst rare breed pig’s cheeks, had bean and whiskey oak smoked bacon ragout with maple syrup, sherry vinegar, celeriac puree and jus. Our amuse bouches proved a brace of half crown size rondelles of pink Wild Wicklow Sika Deer with hickory smoked chestnut puree, candied turnip, and Valrhona chocolate berry sauce. On a black slate plate, the dish exuded rich ruby coloured drama worthy of the deer. Clogherhead prawns, wrapped in golden threads of Kataiffi pastry, were probably the best example of this dish I have had to date. With a red onion compote, mango mayonnaise, salted Rucola and parsley gel, the crunch of the pastry shell breaking through to the sweetness of the beautiful prawns with mango mayonnaise was sublime. His Lordship opted for a fig tartlet, which saw the fine pastry base topped to perfection with piquillo pepper, Serrano ham, Crozier Blue cheese, toasted pine nut, garlic and herb oil, and the star of the show, mellow mellow fig.
‘Middles’ had a Seasonal Tasting salad, vegetable soup, or Orange and Rosemary jelly topped with Glenisk natural yogurt, which I had, and which was delicious.
Mains included milk fed veal with chicken wing jus; Clare Island organic salmon; Blue Valley whole rainbow trout; salt fried Donald Russell sirloin steak, all bejeweled and bedazzled with interesting pairings. Brendan opted for ‘Friendly Farmer chicken’ which had the breast cut into angled chunks, resting on a pumpkin nage on a long plate, interspersed with sections of fig, toasted pinenuts and quenelles of diced chorizo. I had a very chic presentation of Thornhill duck which saw the breast cut into two sharp rectangular tranches laid together on their sides on a black slate plate. These were dotted with bright yellow bitter Mandarin orange gel, banana pudding, VM garden Jerusalem artichoke, and a line to the side of dried cherry and duck skin granola. There were a lot of elements on this menu but there was no overkill or fighting for notice on the plate, which we are now seeing sometimes. Perfectly judged. Ace.
Himself was hard aground when it came to puds. I was too if truth be told but I was fascinated by ‘P.B.J.’ - again an incredibly smart collaboration of peanut butter parfait, apple jelly, apple meringue, bee pollen, raspberry gel and coconut, singing from the plate in a crisp spring combination of green, white and chocolate.
And yes, I gobbled a quartet of petit fours with the excuse that ‘I may not pass this way again’!! With a delicious bottle of organic Clos de Caveau Vacqueyras 2010 (€36 ) it was a faultless evening.
VM Restaurant,
Viewmount House,
Dublin Road,
Longford,
Co. Longford.
Tel: (043) 334-1919