Restaurant Review: Out of the Blue - The freshest fish and great service

THE seemingly endless run of warm days this summer has sent many of us scurrying to the coast and so, inevitably, we found ourselves in glorious West Kerry recently.

My excuse for going this time was to attend the 10th anniversary celebrations of one of my favourite brewers — Adrienne Heslin of the West Kerry Brewery based at Tigh Bric in Ballyferriter.

I realise Adrienne’s beers are available in bottle format but you have to visit the pub to get hold of a pint of her rather wonderful Uncle Columb, a cask conditioned dark mild porter that may well be the only hand-pumped porter in the country.

Do visit Tigh Bric, even though I realise just how easy it is to stay in Dingle, one of my favourite places in the world.

Dingle is also one of my favourite places to eat fish — specifically from the excellent Reel takeaway if I want proper chips and crispy batter, or from Out of the Blue (OOTB) in the harbour if I’m feeling a bit more posh.

The menu in OOTB changes daily and has the following boasts: ‘No Chips, Nothing Frozen, Always Fresh or Alive… if there is no fish available we don’t open!’. If only all our fish restaurants followed these rules (except the chips one, obviously).

Having already had a picnic on Wine Strand in the afternoon we were not hugely hungry and some of the dishes below were shared.

The upstairs room is bright and airy with appropriate seaside art on the walls and was filled with happy diners (as always). First up was fried plaice fillet with tomato and anchovy salsa — perfectly cooked with the bright fresh flavours from the salsa (and bonus cumin seeds) complimenting the silky textures of the plaice. Fresh steamed mussels in a tomato compote had subtle use of tomato and good use of herbs with thyme, rosemary and coriander all making an appearance.

Tomatoes and seafood are not always a perfect match but here the ripe sweet tomatoes and the earthy herbs combined to make a perfect Merry Clayton allowing the Mick Jagger Mussels to shine.

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Flash fried squid with chilli, ginger and coriander combined squeaky bouncy squid strips with pitch-perfect spicing and some tasty well-dressed salad, a virtually perfect starter fish course. Also in harmony was the duo of cod and smoked haddock with coriander and chilli sauce (€25.50) — the smoked and the natural fish worked better than expected, each adding character to the other.

Our meal had been just about perfect to this point but then we hit a snag. Wild salmon is on OOTB’s menu for just a few weeks every year, so ordering it was a must. Given its scarcity I am rather particular about how wild salmon is cooked — I asked for it to be flash fried so that it remained uncooked in the centre but sadly what arrived had been cooked through.

Our savvy waitress, however, had suspected the salmon was a little overdone and swooped mere seconds after the disappointment registered on my face. My salmon was whisked away and replaced a couple of minutes later with a perfectly rendered version that allowed this most glorious of fish to properly show off its oily-sweet deliciousness — backed up nicely by sweetly caramelised onions, herbed new potatoes and a light buttery-citrus hollandaise, and all for the very fair price of €32.50.

The owner of OOTB Tim Mason has the good fortune to have the (rather excellent) wine importer Ben Mason for a sibling and my glass of Mesta organic tempranillo rosé was perfect with my chilli squid and equally good with the wild salmon. Herself chose a carafe (€21) of red fruit and lightly spiced Palacio dos Marqueses from Portugal and the two lads chose from the excellent beer list which includes West Kerry beers as well as Killarney and Tom Crean.

A milky rich chocolate mousse laced with Baileys was good but better still was a textbook Île Flottante with a large light fluffy meringue island floating in a finely executed vanilla scented crème anglaise.

So off you go to West Kerry before the weather breaks.

The tab

Dinner for four people with four starters, two main courses, two

desserts, a glass and a carafe of wine and a bottle of beer cost €154

How to

Dinner: Open seven days from 5pm;

Lunch: Sundays and Bank Holiday Weekends, 12.30pm to 3pm

The verdict

Food: 8/10

Drink: 8/10

Service: 9.5/10

Ambience: 9/10

Value: 8.5/10

In a sentence

The freshest fish, great service, ideal drinks list, and you are in Dingle — what’s not to love.