To hell with the begrudgers! Helen Lucy Burke loves the Ritz-Carlton
Belting down the N11 towards the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Enniskerry, I practised my proud Parnassian sneer: left corner of the mouth drawn sideways, and lifted slightly to reveal the tip of a tooth: the half-closed eyes of one who has seen it all and is not impressed. A small vinegary smile completes the effect.
Yep, I had read the publicity and knew what was ahead – not that there was any fear, hope or expectation of being bellowed at by Gordon Ramsay in person, for he, I deduce, is merely the initiator who gives the push that will start the mighty wheels a-moving.
The sneer got pretty heavy usage when we drove in to the front of the hotel. (Go through the Powerscourt gates, up the avenue past some wonderful trees, drifted underneath with blankets of golden leaves, and take the first turn on the left.) There were three of us, and we made the identical sound, a sort of cccggghhh like rooks surprised. We were facing what was in our opinion, the Ritz-Carlton’s worst feature: a kind of corrugated iron hay barn with open sides. A gateway with a pierced iron topping gives access to a lift bringing you down five storeys to the ballroom and other facilities. I think a Japanese effect is intended, and sure maybe there will be creepers some time to soften the horror. Later we learned that the “corrugated iron hay barn” is made of copper and will oxidise to a pleasing green.
Park the car (lots of spaces) and on to the rather awful hotel building – at least on the outside, we thought. The lobby has definite overtones of the Ballsbridge Four Seasons, but there are real fires, and lots of seating, and contented parties of elderly women were working through the kind of morning snacks that gladden the hearts of those who want to view the latest place in fashion, at minimum cost.
The atmosphere was very welcoming although there was a little glitch with our seating, for we were led to a table facing the wall. Every alternate table has a window view of the gardens and landscape, including the Sugarloaf Mountain. A wail of protest was instantly heeded, and we were seated in a nice position to see where a helipad is being built in full view and full sound (I fear) of the dining room. I estimated the distance as 250 yards, but I may be wrong.
The menu has been changed recently to incorporate a table-d’hôte lunch of two courses for €30, a fair enough price by Dublin standards. Our amuse-gueule arrived briskly, two little dishes on a single plate, one holding a samosa, which is an Indian thing related on the mother’s side to an Italian raviolo, but crispy. This one was stuffed with fungi (morels I think), and flanking it was a blushing sculpture of a creamy substance, with fluted edges, tasting of the same divine fungus. Oh, Oh! I tasted, I groaned, and the sneer dropped from my face and scuttled quickly out the door, not to be used again in this dining room.
There were three of us: a Young Yuppie, a Horse Trainer, and myself. Our three sets of eyes glowed in unison, and we whispered reverently that this was a serious cuisine. As both courses each gave a choice of three dishes (no puddings are included on the lists) we were able to sample the entire prix fixe menu. YY had Terrine of wood pigeon, swede panna cotta and beetroot purée. The choice of earthy vegetables was inspired, but the true triumph went to the wood pigeon. It was cut into small squares, each dense and wild-tasting, but perfectly tender. YY’s plate looked as if it had been vacuumed, for he had used a bit of the lovely bread to mop up all the juices.
HT had a Carpaccio of yellow fin tuna and organic salmon with tomato and cucumber. (Carpaccio indicates something very red, i.e. raw meat or fish.) As I had already sampled my own dish and YY’s, both strong-tasting, I relied on HT’s appraisal which was “Quite exquisite. Very finely judged and delicate, and the right quantity.”
Pumpkin soup with truffled gnocchi had fallen to my lot. It was served
in a very large soup plate, whose flat margin was striated like the
rings on a log. A beautiful flavoursome soup it was – but the plate
being very wide and unheated, the soup was already in the luke-warm
state, and I like my soup to lep with heat. I tentatively identified
little brown slivers as truffles, though they made no truffle statement
on my palate.
As everyone groaned in a united orgasm over the next three dishes,
there was no telling which won the Apple of Perfection. HT’s best end
of lamb (that is the end near the loin) with spiced ratatouille,
aubergine purée, crisp polenta and rosemary sauce certainly could not
have been bettered, with its contrasts of crisp and gooey, and the
delicately assertive sauce. YY’s choice was pasta: taglioni with a wild
mushroom fricassee, globe artichokes and truffle emulsion. His rapidly
moving fork spoke volumes.
I had Fillet of hake rolled in prosciutto (Italian wafer-thin ham – the waiter pleasingly announced it as prosskeeto) and stuffed with tomato and olives, scallop and prawn cannelloni, basil and fennel foam. You see? We have left the earthiness of the soil and ventured into Atlantic waters. It was a lovely, lovely dish, although hake can frequently err on the dull side.
Here endeth the €30 part of things. But HT and I went on to pudding courses, and YY, a growing lad, asked to go back to the starters. Our waiter did not blink or say Fie! YY left things in his experienced hands, and the chef came up with a dish on which he was practising his art before he breaks it to an astonished dining room. I will reveal no secrets, except to extol more perfection and reveal that it contained squid. (It was not charged for.)
The puds! My god! HT’s was Hot chocolate and salted caramel fondant with milk ice-cream, and it was a bubbling volcanic mass that Montezuma would kill for. (Montezuma, Emperor of the Incas, used to take his hot chocolate with chilli peppers. A trip to the Ritz Carlton would cure that.) Panting half a step behind was my own pud that looked like one of Mondrian’s weirdly beautiful paintings, €14. Dark chocolate flavoured subtly with anise ran across the plate in a wide stripe like a road. To the left a brown pillar topped with a square of gold-flecked chocolate stood proud above this surrealist landscape. To the right was the Ohmygod raspberry and ginger sorbet that complemented perfectly the filling of chocolate mousse (or something like it) in the pillar.
Then coffee and chocolates and fruit jelly in strips, and I beg you not to miss these. Just order them, and let the exquisite surprise wash over you. We got them on the house, but normally they cost €5.
We drank a bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, very pleasant but stiffly priced at €49. Total bill was €163 to which we added €20 tip.
The Ritz-Carlton Powerscourt, Enniskerry, County Wicklow. 274 8888. www.ritzcarlton.com
Honest Chef Shocker!
Paul Carroll, chef of the Ritz-Carlton Powerscourt restaurant is Irish, from Tallaght, with an ethnic foodie background – in coddle. “My mother cooked fantastic coddle. It was the only thing she cooked that I would eat.” He took a summer holiday job in the Clarence and fell in love with cooking. Since then he has worked under the foremost chefs, and has been effed and blinded at by Gordon Ramsay. Did he mind? “You’re there for a reason; because you want to work for him.”
His signature dish is loin of Wicklow venison with pickled red cabbage, chocolate gnocchis, and red wine sauce, for €40. I mentioned my barely luke-warm soup and he uttered a broken cry. “There have been complaints about cold food. The air conditioning is not properly balanced, and when the door of the kitchen is opened a wind from the Arctic roars in, chilling everything.”
He told me his ambition is to challenge in as short a space as possible the Big Four – Thornton’s, Guilbaud’s, L’Ecrivain, Chapter One – and to leave them standing (three Michelin stars, here we come). He had better get that draught fixed sharpish.
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