Here is the dinner which Gordon Parker cooked, and which Jane Parker described, in Salville House on a Wednesday in June: Scallops with crispy bacon and salad leaves. Pan-fried fillet of John Dory with gazpacho couscous and diced vegetables. Passion fruit caramel with vanilla ice cream. Coffee, tea, herb tea.
The cooking was every bit as precise and accomplished as the descriptions on the menu. The scallops were deliciously sweet and saline, the bacon of excellent quality and cut into perfect lardons, the salad leaves crisp and garden-fresh. The John Dory was a superlative piece of fish, the couscous expertly achieved, the vegetables a fine dice of ratatouille cooked just right. The ice cream and caramel was spot on, and I thoroughly enjoyed a bottle of Mitchell's claret which I had brought down from the city.
Salville House is a place in which precision and simplicity combine to create a fine house, where things have found their right place, and this is the secret of its comfort. Simple old chairs and other pieces of country furniture will be left alone and, thereby, they are artfully framed by the walls, and I love this decorative restraint.
There is also a romantic little flat, with two bedrooms, connected to the house, and it is just as simple and appropriate as the main house itself.
Salville is excellent value for money, and its proximity to the main Wexford road, just a mile past Enniscorthy, means that getting here is easy.
Salville House, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford tel: 054-35252, B&B £22.50, dinner £18, bring your own wine, communal table. Just off the Enniscorthy-Wexford Road.