La Marine Restaurant, Kelly's Resort Hotel, Rosslare, Co Wexford
THERE are two fascinating elements at play, side by side, in Bill Kelly's new La Marine restaurant, the latest baby in the cradle of the Kelly family's celebrated Resort Hotel, in Rosslare.
The first is a room which is all pell-mell and helter-skelter in terms of design, a wild fusion of influences which the French would term un bricolage, a jumbling, of periods, colours and orthodoxies.
Alongside this inspired assemblage of design, the food in La Marine offers what is effectively a definitive - almost a textbook definition of modern Irish bistro cooking. Logical, almost authoritarian in its purity, it offers a ruthlessly concentrated parallel to the concoction of the room. To explain this duality, we need to look at the characters involved in these two separate aspects of La Marine.
The design is the work of Bill Kelly and his team, and it has all the confidence of someone who, like Mr Kelly, has a great love of the counterpoint, contrast and humour of modern art.
He sees no tension in putting a modern blue chair on one side of a green-topped table and facing it with a classically red-coated banquette. He has covered one wall with tiling reminiscent of a fishmonger's shop, and reflects it in large mirrors which beef up the size of the room and also bounce back the massive mural of a dock scene on another wall. An open kitchen at one end of the room is faced by a traditional serving counter and a double-sided banquette. At the other end, a curving bay-window zooms upwards into a turret. The room is three steps up from the large bar into which the entrance hall opens.
The dining room establishes a warm, buzzy bistro feel which welcomes you instantly and efficiently and when, as on the night we were there, you hear Charles Aznavour singing Ave Maria on the sound system (I'm not joking), you find yourself saying: "yeah, okay, that's cool".
The cooking, meanwhile, is the work of Eugene Callaghan, a chef who is no stranger to these pages, nor a stranger to the food-lovers of Wexford. After a spell with Paul Rankin in Belfast, Callaghan opened up a little place in Ballyedmond, Co Wexford, about 40 minutes north of Rosslare. It was, to put it mildly, a modest, unprepossessing room. But that didn't stop folk from travelling from Dublin to Ballyedmond to enjoy the work of this most singular cook.
Callaghan is singular, inasmuch as his style of cooking is so subtle you could almost take it for granted. His work chases after the integral tastes of foods with the concentration and single-mindedness of a bloodhound: He is, therefore, a cracking bistro cook. He can present the simplest thing - my main course of seared rib steak with crispy onions and a gratin dauphinoise, for example - and the food represents not just perfection in terms of its cooking, but also a complete survey of all the different flavours such a collection of ingredients can offer.
The funkiness and good humour of the style in La Marine is the perfect space for such talent. A starter of soy-sharp grilled chicken salad with red onions and French beans was invigorating, while a soothing dish of pasta ribbons with asparagus, peas and home-dried tomatoes was deliciously excellent, and should be utterly mesmerising come the summer, when the Wexford sunshine has worked its magic on local peas and asparagus.
Callaghan brings home the bacon with desserts as well. An individual, circular Granny Smith tarte tatin with vanilla ice cream is marvellously pleasing; a chocolate gateau with mascarpone delightful.
Bill Kelly has created La Marine to give a less formal, more inexpensive option than the dining room in Kelly's Hotel itself, and the room is not just welcoming, it is also easily affordable. The most expensive starter is salt and pepper squid with a soya and pickled ginger dip at £5.95 for a large starter portion, and a starter portion of pasta costs £3.95 and the chicken salad £4.95 for a very generous plate. Main courses run between £7.95 - for a spiced lamb casserole with Basmati rice and the gratin of cod with leeks and mushrooms - to £8.95 for the seared rib steak. Deserts cost between £2.95 and £3.50.
As one would expect from a wine-lover like Bill Kelly, the wine list is delightfully surprising: indeed, it is iconoclastic. No New World sharpies here, only a selection of the French wines Mr Kelly imports himself, including the great Chateauneuf-du-Pape made by his father-in-law, Paul Avril.
We drank an excellent half bottle of Chablis, made by Louis Michel, and a soft, lush Graves, Chateau Gaillat, made somewhere in heaven to match the rib steak.
The policy of using only directly imported wines means value for money on the list is exceptional, but some notes on the style of the wines would be helpful.