Situated on the rather unfriendly and inaccessible Fairgreen Rd, Loam’s exterior is akin to a movie rental shop in a suburban shopping center. Once you push through the front door however, you enter a large dining room awash with serene calmness. The restaurant decor is distinctly Scandinavian in style, and wood features and moody foliage punctuate the large room.
My partner and I were led down to a big round table in the middle of the spacey room, overlooking the open plan working kitchen. The head chef’s presence was felt at the front of the kitchen, as he worked with a supervising eye over the subdued dining room. After a brief, customary look at the menu we chose to go for the €60 tasting menu. We both chose a glass of white wine, tasty and respectably priced at €6.
We were promptly greeted with three circular amuse bouche. The three little tasters were light, plate cleansing and tastefully displayed on earthy rock. Bread and Cuinneog butter sprinkled with salt flakes followed and the fresh butter rivaled an award-winning cheese.
The restaurant willingly catered for my pesicitarian requirements and my first course arrived: crabmeat topped with marinated fennel shavings and dill. Crabmeat is generally not something I like, but this stuff was brilliantly natural in flavor, fresh and effortlessly existing on the plate.
Following this, we were served our next course: a mushroom and squid soup. This multi-layered dish consisted of squid ink, micro mushrooms, roasted onion and spiralised squid, all submerged under a mushroom broth. The soup was served in a beautiful earthen bowl, which enhanced the deep ocean mood. The dish was a detailed construction, abound with textures and flavours and it was definite highlight.
There was a slight fall from grace in the third course – a wedge of pumpkin served with goat’s milk and roasted hazelnuts. The fattiness of the goat’s milk was unsettling and the coarseness of the pumpkin rind around the outer edges was disappointing. More seafood followed and I was hopeful that the tide might rise again.
The squid ink lover affair continued and I was served monkfish and boiled broccoli stems on a bed of squid ink. This was no match for the soup and ultimately it was a disappointing watery serving. When I tucked into the portion, water retained from the broccoli leaked over all the plate, with no starch component to absorb it.
Growing fuller and increasingly more difficult to impress, the desert chef served us our pre-desert. He described to contents of the plate – lemon curd, clotted cream with a coulis and marinated buckthorn berries. I queried what a buckthorn berry was and the chef enthusiastically described the sourcing of the berries: from foraging, to preserving, to storing. From the Wild West coast of Ireland to that table and into my belly, I could visualize the whole process.
The main desert followed Pre desert. The second desert was nice, although much too similar to the first, ending the meal on a lull.
The Queen of Connacht in me absolutely appreciated the vision, philosophy and practice of the restaurant: what we were being served was more than the sum of its parts. But in terms of flavor, a number of the dishes were substantially less than the sum of its parts.
Loam showcases an intuitive attunement with its surroundings, and an ambitious approach to modern Irish cuisine. But the jury is still out on whether it possesses the confidence to execute such ambition. The talent is clear and with a Michelin award under its belt, Loam will undoubtedly flourish. Two tasting menus plus three glasses of wine set us back €140.
