Restaurant Review - Loam
Friday 12 December 2014
Loam is the new, long-awaited restaurant by Enda McEvoy. Why long-awaited? McEvoy is a Cavan-born chef who has been cooking in Galway for some time, both in the former Sheridan's on the Dock, and Aniar when it was awarded its first Michelin Star in 2013. He left Aniar a year later, and there has been speculation as to his next step.
I had McEvoy's food in both Sheridan's and Aniar, so have had the benefit of seeing his progression. At Loam, he has taken his ideas further. You could say he has turned right at Galway and taken a leap towards the darker, wilder regions of Scandinavia, with a virtual maelstrom in a bowl of artistic twists. These would, no doubt, be appreciated by Wallander types, but I did wonder if they would bring the punters down the steps every weekend, rattling their post-recessionary euros. I hope they do. Having done a 'stage' at the celebrated Noma in Copenhagen, it clearly influenced him greatly, thus translating his experiences into the Irish terroir.
I absolutely loved the space, which is in an office-block basement. It's all about cement, industrial style, stainless-steel ceilings, vast, white-cube lightshades, floor-standing bunches of twigs, contemporary-retro Nordic-design furniture and plenty of space. The front section is a wine bar serving charcuterie plates.
From what I am seeing of late, no kitchen should be without a mandolin and a dehydrator, because everything cool nowadays revolves around transparent ribbons and circles of vegetables, dried something or other, and 'dustings', which were to the fore here too.
The format in the restaurant was a six-course Tasting Menu at €60, or a "Simplicity Menu" with three "Small" dishes at €9 each, four "Larger" plates €24.50-€30.50, and "Sweeties" at €9.
Service was superb and, very quickly, our waiter arrived with an amuse bouche trio. Two tasty, crispy sourdough balls, containing pig's head meat, rested on straw in a wooden bowl, but dried slices of 'liver' looked like something that had been left in the oven all night by mistake - and, honestly, they didn't taste any better. Your granny would have binned them. A little squidge of what we were told was creamed squid on a crisp was pleasant.
The Tasting Menu is available by the table only, but Brendan didn't want to eat much, and they kindly allowed me to have it while he had the Simplicity Menu.
I kicked off with beef tartare with egg, salted gooseberry and nasturtiums, which looked and tasted good. Brendan, meanwhile, had three shards of mackerel, looking pretty beneath shavings of radish, turnip and dill sprigs (€9). Next up on the Tasting Menu was a noodle bowl with vegetable ribbons, concealing within their folds three clams, in a cream "clam custard". Its blandness didn't grab me. Potato and grated, cured egg had teensy potatoes on a beurre noisette, topped with potato crisps and potato foam, which I really liked.
Breast of duck was as rare as could be, with an amazing scent of rose, served with beetroot. Brendan's monkfish (€28.50), topped with woody long-stem broccoli and kale, served with a bowl of new potatoes on the side, was not cheap for what it was. There was a mention of smoked roe - the effects of which he couldn't see or taste - but perhaps that was the idea, and maybe they were the light brown dusting on the fish; we are still wondering.
A delicious pre-dessert involved oats and redcurrants, while dessert itself was a wonderful bowl of wild plums, woodruff granitee, meadowsweet sorbet and dried milk shards. I passed on the cheese course (€6 supplement), and we were brought a dark pastille and two caramel sweets.
With a bottle of Edal 2012 Contreras Ruiz Condado de Huelva (€29), our bill with optional service and two bottles of water (€5) - they only do small bottles, which is annoying - was €146.50.
Loam,
Geatta Na Cathrach,
Fairgreen,
Galway
Tel: (091) 569-727
loamgalway.com
lucindaosullivan.com