Park Inn, Mulranny: Mulrany is a bit off the beaten track. There's little chance of passing through by accident, but if you're heading for Achill from Westport it can pay to pause there. Apart from the beach and view there's the cooking at the Park Inn, writes Tom Doorley
The Park Inn is the refurbished Great Western Hotel, perched above the sea. In the old days it was the kind of place in which you could imagine William Trevor setting a short story, where bridge was played after dinner and everything, including the guests, was slightly frayed and rubbed at the edges.
It struggled on but didn't quite make it into the present century. Last year, though, it reopened, fully refurbished and with its grand diningroom, now called the Nephin Restaurant, still commanding that smashing sea view. But times change, and this venerable old hotel now looks to a different market.
The Park Inn is smart but not grand. It is pitched firmly at the middle market, and when I visited it was full of happy holidaymakers who, in the main, were unlikely to be regulars at the likes of Ballymaloe or Delphi Lodge. The diningroom is a happy place full of large families, with none of that breathless hush that descends on posher places. It's a proper seaside hotel for ordinary people with children who are unlikely to become trustafarians.
The diningroom is a happy place for another reason too. The chef here is Seamus Commons, a Mayo man who until a couple of years ago headed the kitchen team at L'Ecrivain, Derry and Sallyanne Clarke's restaurant in Dublin. He is a serious chef, and his à la carte menu contains many styles and influences that would be at home in the kind of restaurants that get, and often keep, a Michelin star or two. It's certainly not the kind of thing that similar hotels with a similar market ever attempt, so it comes as a very pleasant surprise. And prices are even nicer.
An amuse bouche of a lightly grilled oyster in a sharp but creamy emulsion was the very essence of the sea, and a tiny serving of intense and surprisingly refreshing cauliflower soup was just as good. Memories of L'Ecrivain were stirred by the "tasting of fresh water prawns", especially by the use of kataifi pastry. Another variation was prawn sauteed with a celeriac puree, which, despite being not exactly in season, pointed up the sweetness of the seafood. A very concentrated prawn bisque reduction livened up a rather tame chilled prawn and yellow pepper terrine. All in all, this was a very grand starter (all that time-consuming attention to detail), and it worked well.
Seared scallops combined surprisingly with a mild horseradish cream (it's amazing how this pungent root can achieve subtlety in the right hands) and rather less well with an over-assertive smoked-salmon element.
A "tasting" again, this time of lamb, struck me as being very Thornton's. Everything worked brilliantly here - the tender kidney cooked just à point, the loin that tasted of real, proper, west of Ireland lamb (which nothing can rival) and the superb lamb sausage with just enough rosemary seasoning. This was a very happy dish indeed, admittedly a bit fiddly, but that's what haute cuisine tends to be about.
Pan-roasted milk-fed veal (from France) was not bad. Perhaps I should have known better. This kind of veal, apart from production methods about which I would have humane reservations, is a continental kind of thing. Being used to good Irish meat, I have to say that it didn't exactly sing, despite deft handling in the kitchen. But the backing vocals, so to speak, of bacon and apricot croquette, cauliflower puree and a really, really good shallot and parsley veloute, were impressive.
The cheese selection was fairly ordinary, but a glorious, taste-filled salsa of real strawberries with a touch of black pepper was impressively simple, showing that the kitchen here doesn't mess with good raw materials.
With a bottle of extravagant (but fairly priced) Châteauneuf-du-Pape and two coffees, the bill came to €168.50.
Wine choice:
We went mad and had the stunningly concentrated study in low-yield Grenache that is Domaine de Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2003 (€71), which opened up into a magical wine. Although the list is certainly more interesting than what you usually get in country hotels, it's not really a match for the grub. Highlights include Girardin's glorious white Savigny-lès-Beaune 2003 (€45.50), Perrin's organic Côtes du Rhône (€35), the fruity pink La Source de Vignelaure (€29), Beaune Vigne de l'Enfant Jésus 2000 (€107), Charles Melton's lovely Rose of Virginia (€30), Mudhouse Marlborough Riesling (€32) and Bouchon's rather French Carmenere from Chile (€32).