🌞 Wild Atlantic Way Summer 🌞 Ealu @ The Stonehouse, Dingle
Every dish a jaw-dropper.
You have to hand it to Kallam and ClÃona and their team at Ealu at the Stonehouse: these guys are aiming to knock your socks off with every single plate coming out of their kitchen.
Just look at their riff on the Gochujang Buttermilk Chicken Burger.
A monument of crispy chicken, roughly the size of a newly-born baby, arrives sandwiched between a toasted bun on a large plate. The American family who had ordered it greeted the GBCB with a mixture of bemusement and astonishment as it arrived at their table, and you would have fancied those folk to know a thing or two about portion size.
The burger evokes your astonishment, demands your admiration, and grabs your attention. And that’s before you have even had a bite.
What about the seafood chowder with warm bread, then? Another big beast of a dish, packed with fish, garnished with chopped chives and a single large mussel, with a tombstone of fresh brown bread that would easily feed four.
And the coconut and lime laksa? Another epic, with enoki mushrooms ribboned across the large plate, alongside diced onion and spring onion, crispy onions and pickled ginger, a confident and flavourful bowl which shows both confidence and understanding.
Ealu is a multi-faceted food and tourism emporium, way, way out west of Dingle town on Slea Head, way, way down that sometimes-scary coastal drive. The eating rooms and the retail space are housed in a darling old stone house, but where other owners might have gone for the expected tourist menu offerings, the Ealu crew are here to shatter your expectations.
And it’s not just the savoury dishes that upend your expectations. Kallam, pastry chef Anya Borymska and sous chef Clement Denoual also produce the most jaw-dropping desserts, and the wine list is an absolute peach, with brilliant bottles and excellent notation.
We first met them when we bought some of the team’s superb, hand-painted chocolates a few years back at the annual Dingle festival. The chocolates were evidence of a crew with exacting standards, and the drive to execute those standards to the highest level. Best of all, there is an exuberance, a joie de vivre, in all their work, and to find it here, at the far western precipice of the country, seems like nothing less than a gift from the Gods.
So, the first part of your strategy to enjoy Ealu is to have a nominated driver, that selfless soul who will drink the alcohol-free stuff whilst the rest of you indulge.
And what bottles ClÃona has brought together: the Rathfilly Rosé Brut and the Nyetimber Blanc de Blanc from Sussex: champagnes from Stephane Regnault and Gaspard Brochet; the Domaine Kavanagh Genevier from Wexford; the Niagara Riesling ice wine from Ontario; the Cypres de Climens from Barsac. This is an oenologist’s dream, a wine lover’s paradise.
The lunch menu offers half-a-dozen sharing plates – baked Cavanbert; Iberico ham; bruschetta with pesto and burrata – and six main plates: the chicken burger, the laksa and the chowder, along with a Moroccan bean stew; steamed mussels; and beetroot salad with walnuts.
There are two sides, and other main dishes on the day might be their riff on bouillabaisse, or scallops with risotto, or a nifty Scotch egg made with pork and lamb sausage meat from the Dingle Butcher.
Deliciously, the high ambitions of the kitchen are matched by their skills. Ealu dishes eat cleanly and deeply, bold expressions of flavour, colour and texture. The kitchen wants that wow! factor on each plate and they work super-hard on every detail, which means you enjoy soulful, full-flavoured chowder; a perky laksa with resonant textures and spicing; airy and flavourful brown bread.
And then: Lifelike Lemon.
If life throws you lemons, then do what pastry chef and chocolatier Anya Borymska does with hers. She creates a lemon and lime mousse, pairs it with white chocolate, and then fashions it to look exactly – exactly! – like a lemon you have just plucked from a tree on the Amalfi coast.
She does the same magic with Lifelike Pear.
When the dessert arrives at the table, unadorned on a large white plate and with a lifelike leaf protruding from its flesh, the room stops. If you ever want to be there when an entire room of people holds its breath with astonishment, then Ealu is the room you want to be in. Stunned silence. Gobsmacked. Say what!
And, guess what? Lifelike Lemon eats just as good as it looks. We will be going back for Lifelike Pear, and Lifelike Apple. We aim to Collect the Set.
Ealu at the Stonehouse is distinct, different, disciplined, and moreishly delicious. It is, of course, just about the longest way to go for lunch. But don’t be letting that stop you.
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