Tom Doorley is spoiled for choice when deciding where to eat in Wexford
Wexford is blessed, I suppose, by being reasonably far from Dublin, but it has its commuters, too. It also has more than its share of good restaurants, a phenomenon only partly explained by the influx of visitors for the annual opera festival. It looks as if Wexford people, by and large, demand and get good food at fairly reasonable prices. I wish more counties would follow their example.
I like some half-dozen restaurants in Wexford town, but I would almost be prepared to eat out of the bins at La Dolce Vita, Ireland's best and most authentic Italian restaurant. It doesn't open for dinner, however, so I unerringly steer for La Riva, Wexford's longest-established proper restaurant, where the kitchen hums with the creativity of Warren Gillen. Gillen is one of Ireland's best chefs, but he's a modest bloke without the profile of several considerably less talented cooks.
La Riva's diningroom overlooks the harbour. Specials are chalked on a blackboard, and the place has a funky-bistro feeling. In fact, the food here is of a much higher order than that - and much higher than is suggested by the laminated menu, which has a couple of pages pasted in. Pay no attention to such appearances. They simply don't matter. The early-bird menu, which is served between 6pm and 7pm on weekdays, costs €22 for two courses, plus coffee or tea. If I didn't know who was in the kitchen, I would not have ordered "spring roll of chicken, goats' cheese, caramelised onion and marjoram, cherry tomato salad, horseradish aioli", as it sounds like a nightmare. And I had an experience with a spring roll last year - one that contained cucumber and peppers - that still haunts me.
Anyway, this one was great. The crisp, dry-coated cylinder was sliced in two and stood upright. The contents comprised lovely brown thigh meat - the stuff with proper taste - subtle goats' cheese, pungent herbs and the sweet onions. Delicious. The horseradish aioli was more aioli than horseradish, but this may have been deliberate. A tartare of crab was crab meat held together with a rich but spiky tartare sauce with plump, sharp, salty capers and fine slivers of pickled cornichons. Starters rarely come any better than this.
Little fillets of John Dory were floured and fried in butter until perfectly à point and served very simply with a saffron mash. Roast chicken breast on the bone came with a mercifully attenuated harissa sauce, lime creme fraiche and an intriguing turnip and cumin puree. This was sweet, earthy, spicy and simply brilliant with the rest of the line-up.
Desserts were ace. There was an ingot of dense, intense chocolate brownie flavoured with orange, served with a light caramel sauce and a nugget of rich, silky vanilla ice cream. A magnolia-coloured panna cotta was velvet smooth and utterly unctuous, and came topped with gingered new-season rhubarb. Perfect.
An amuse bouche of potato, shiitake and spring onion soup (a combination I first encountered at Chapter One, in Dublin) was an impeccable palate opener.
With two glasses of house white and one of red, plus the puds and double espressos, the bill for this very deft cooking came to €75.90. Stick to the two courses, regular coffee and a couple of glasses of wine and you will come out for less than €60.
La Riva, 2 Henrietta Street, Wexford, 053-24330
WINE CHOICE
House wines are from the excellent Argentinian Alfredo Roca (€20/€5.50 a glass) - a Malbec and an unusual Tocai Fruilano with a curious spicy dimension - and the Aroma range of Chileans at €19.70, whose striking labels aim to reflect the varietal character of what's inside. Château Vignelaure Rosé (€21.50), from David and Catherine O'Brien in Provence, is a sound buy, as is the classic Castello di Volpaia Chianti Classico (€29.50). Perrin Reserve Côtes du Rhône (€25.50) is organic but not credited. This is a list that could, perhaps, do with a dash of passion and excitement, but it's perfectly adequate.