I have no doubt that with their respective talents, both Con Roche and Serge Coustrain would succeed individually wherever they chose to work. Roche is a masterful host, and Coustrain is a fine, disciplined chef.
But we are lucky, all of us, that for the past number of years these two men have chosen to work together, initially in Dromoland Castle, then in the Castletroy Park Hotel in Limerick, and for the last few years in The Wild Geese, in the beautiful village of Adare. Together, Roche and Coustrain make one of the great double acts in modern Irish cooking, and their joint efforts make the Wild Geese one of the most enjoyable places to eat anywhere in the country.
Like any successful partnership, their magic lies in fusing their styles to create a single entity. Con Roche creates just the sort of welcome you crave when you walk into this homey, comfy set of rooms which occupy a yellow, thatched house on the main street. Serge Coustrain then delivers the coup de grace with cooking that is measured, enjoyable, and utterly right for the service and the style. No one else does what they do the way they do it, and few other restaurants have a signature which so confidently and memorably imprints itself on your imagination.
Right from the day they opened their doors in Adare, their manifesto was direct and uncompromising. Each year they continue: "our commitment to providing all our guests with the freshest and finest local produce we can source. We carry no frozen foods, we bake our own breads fresh every morning, our desserts are handmade and we prepare all our dishes to order so if it takes a little bit longer we hope you feel it will be worth it. Every guest is important to us and we will do our utmost to ensure that your meal with us is a memorable one".
This is no idle boast, or a mere recitation of the ambitions which should be common currency among restaurateurs. Roche and Coustrain do their utmost to make you feel welcome, and to produce excellent food. Best of all, they succeed.
The Wild Geese is a restaurant which is always packed with regulars, folk who come here because they know that they are treated as special guests every time.
Coustrain's menus can look over-complex when you first see them, with every principal ingredient complemented and cosseted by a host of others: pan-fried hot black pudding and chicken sausage served with deep-fried apples on a bed of winter salad leaves drizzled with a light curry oil. Or pan-fried breast of Drumcollogher duck served on a bed of sweet potato, braised lentils and diced carrots with a jus reduction. Lengthiest of all is: pan-fried wild Limerick game with fresh foie gras served on a bed of marinated pied de mouton mushrooms, potato rosti and winter salad leaves with a black truffle dressing.
This can almost sound like too much to say, never mind too much to eat, but the reality is that the dishes are not over-complex, and the purity and subtlety of the cooking is never lost. I began with a tempura of fresh Bere Island king scallops served with angel-hair pasta tossed with a honey and buttermilk dressing with roasted pine nuts, and each element of the dish was beautifully realised.
A circle of sliced scallops was coated in the lightest batter, with a small column of pasta arranged in the centre, fanned by a scattering of salad leaves and the pine nuts. The tempura of scallops was breathtaking, perfectly uniform in size and shape, their heat offset by the salad, with the angel hair pasta a well-judged companion and the dressing bringing the disparate flavours together. A home-made polenta soup is served with a julienne of chicken, and what was notable about this was not just its rarity - I'm not aware of anyone else who serves a soup of polenta - but also its paleness. With polenta you expect yellow, but this was a cream colour, with the little slices of chicken arranged in the centre of the bowl. It was excellent, mellow and soulful, the chicken a sharp, toothy riposte to the starchy bowl-full.
Coustrain on occasion cooks entire game dinners for parties and for special evenings, so bearing this in mind I ordered mallard with a port sauce. This came with roasted shallots, a concasse of tomato, a dice of vegetables, and a very smooth potato puree. The bird was gamey and rich and perfectly cooked, and again what I admired here was the clever composition of the various elements: the port sauce and roasted shallots were intense and sweet, the tomato offered a fresh note, the dice of vegetables were clean-tasting. There is a lot to entertain the palate as you progress through the dish, so that every last bite is rewarding. A side dish of green beans, baby potatoes and a puree of carrots was almost superfluous, except that something as delicious as these three were could never be described as superfluous.
A fine lemon tart was of textbook standard, light, sharp, clean and zesty in flavour, while a bread and butter pudding was a fairly dense little column of bread and fruits served with a custard, but I felt this was a little too dense to let the components speak out as clearly as they might have.
The wine list is brilliantly annotated by Con Roche, reflecting both his passion and knowledge about the vine, and it is just another example of how each element of the restaurant has been considered and customised by this partnership. What Roche and Coustrain do in the Wild Geese is simple: they create a memorable experience, and reveal the magic of food, wine, service and ambience, just as they promise to do.
The Wild Geese, Adare, Co Limerick, tel: 061 396451 Open: 6.30 p.m.-10 p.m. Tues-Sat (lunch noon-3.30 p.m. April-September). Major cards.