Campagne, Kilkenny.

Garrett Byrne was head chef in Chapter One when they won a much deserved Michelin star in 2007 under his hand. He was awarded Chef of the year, and Best chef in Dublin in 2006, He has now returned to Kilkenny to open his new restaurant, Campagne in Kilkenny, with his partner and restaurant manager, Brid Hannon. Paolo had to go along on a real foodie trip and he brought along the chef de cuisine from his own erstwhile restaurant, Lisa McMullan for what promised to be a fabulous meal - and certainly didn’t disappoint. Here is the review.

You can find Campagne by the arches of the disused Kilkenny to Portlaoise railway line, in a brand new building in gas House lane. What began as a simple rectangular room has been very cleverly converted into a relaxing dining room by the imaginative addition of curves. Curved interior walls, a large oval in the ceiling for concealed lighting, a curved bar counter and three semi-circular banquettes running serpentine up the middle of the room. Good lighting, pleasing fabrics, comfortable chairs and spacious tables all combined to make us feel instantly comfortable. At the far end of the room, an open countertop allowed us to look into the kitchen where four chefs were at work.

The menu has seven starters and seven main courses – the starters went from €8 for soup to €14 for a terrine of Foie gras, and the mains ran from 24 for a duck confit to 29 for roast halibut and the rump of lamb. Among the starters were an artichoke salad, a chicken liver parfait, gratinated ragout of veal and salmon gravadlax. Main courses choices included a loin of pork, sea bream, breast of veal and slow cooked Hereford beef.

Any one of these dishes would have been a good choice, I thought, but I let Lisa choose first and she picked the Foie gras terrine to start and halibut for her main course. I chose the deep fried haddock to start and followed with the slow cooked beef.

With that decided I turned to the wine list, which, for the moment, is quite short but has some well chosen wines on offer. There are about 25 reds and the same number of whites, three sparklers, five dessert wines and three ports and the price range is from 25 up to €99 for the Billecart Salmon champagne. One of my favourite white wines was on the list at €40, the Pieropan Soave 2006, so we ordered that. If ever there was a wine to change your preconceptions this is one. Those soaves you remember from years ago don’t prepare you for this elegant and complex wine

Just as I’d expected, our meal was excellent. It began with really good breads of which I ate too much, and when the starters arrived, Lisa had in front of her three rounds of terrine, not a dense hard terrine, but a soft a yielding one, that really let the taste of the Foie gras come through. My starter was a lightly smoked piece of haddock crumbed and deep fried, set on a base of mash and served with a spring onion hollandaise and a perfectly poached egg. Both dishes were superbly executed.

The main courses continued this run of gastronomic excellence – Lisa’s halibut was perfectly cooked and came with a pea puree, girolle mushrooms and dry cured bacon. My beef was a slow cooked piece of cheek, which had been marinated in wine before cooking and came with mushrooms, caramelised shallots and smoked bacon. Between us a terra cotta dish contained some fantastic mashed potato, that was probably fifty percent butter. Despite all my good intentions, I ate a lot of it. It ought to be illegal

In truth, neither Lisa or I were hungry for dessert after all this, but after a pause and an espresso each we ordered a mix of three sorbets – melon, blueberry and raspberry. It brought gasps of pleasure from both of us. It was quite, quite delicious. This much is certain, Campagne has seriously raised the bar for dining in Kilkenny. The bill came to €133.50 without service charge.