Restaurant Review: A new seafood journey is beginning at Doolin's Homestead Cottage

When the latest round of Michelin stars were announced in February, there were four new Irish stars, adding to our own little Celtic constellation.

All four went to eateries less than two years old, three cleaving to standard practice when opening a new venture: Establish concept, cost it, assemble budget, deliver as planned.

The Singaporean investors behind Terre (a second star), at Castlemartyr Resort have a global hospitality portfolio that also includes Sheen Falls Lodge and Trinity Townhouse, and JP Magnier, billionaire owner of Cashel Palace Hotel, housing The Bishop’s Buttery (one star), is hardly short of a bob, and though the three owners of D’Olier Street (one star) don’t have war chests remotely comparable to the aforementioned moneymen, they are seasoned professionals who know how to deliver and there is no denying their restaurant is a deliciously swish affair, especially costly to achieve in Dublin.

Then there was ‘Cinderella’, Homestead Cottage, in Doolin, Co Clare.

Formerly head chef at Gregan’s Castle, in the Burren, Robbie McCauley’s exit plan came a cropper and with wife Sophie, formerly Gregan’s Castle sommelier, eight months pregnant, he was casting around for alternatives when offered a restaurant space in an old Irish cottage, complete with flagstone floors, formerly home of a long-standing pizza-burger operation; all that remained of the kitchen was a pizza oven and deep fat fryer.

The McCauleys’ ‘war chest’ was so ridiculously small, better described as Holy Communion piggy bank, that the first miracle is they managed to open the doors.

A humble honour guard of potted plants leads up to the front door of the single storey slate-roofed white cottage and into a main room, every bit the ‘traditional Irish cottage’ of yore, save a few pleasant additions the McCauleys have added to the walls.

Yet, in an age where restaurant interiors often wear the homogenised sheen of a professional makeover, Homestead has a charming authenticity that is very hard to buy. It is small, 30 seats at most, but the natural, organic space is cosy and oh so welcoming.

We begin with house breads and Glenilen butter. Thick, pillowy slabs of superb sourdough, confit garlic and rosemary sourdough focaccia, and dense, sweet treacle and Western Herd porter brown bread.

Alongside, a single crisp radish and lush, salty pork rillette. All are wolfed down with gusto.

Potato rosti, fried to a crisp but as yielding as brioche within, is dotted with smoked onion glaze, barbecue-blackened onions infused in oil and then emulsified. 

Chive flowers complete a sublime snack. Gougère is fine choux pastry piped with gorgeous savoury cream of Hegarty’s cheddar, Western Herd IPA, and preserved black truffle. Eyes roll back in our heads with ecstasy.

Clare Island salmon, Flaggy Shore oyster, garden kohlrabi, cucumber and dill, immaculately marshalled, oyster and dill stealing the best lines, kicks off a troika of seafood dishes.

My favourite is Doonbeg crab, dressed with olive oil, lemon and salt, served with fennel (confit, pickled, and raw) white asparagus, foam of buttermilk and fermented white asparagus trimmings, finished with fennel micro-greens and sorrel.

I question the wisdom of eating new potatoes in any fashion other than steamed and topped with too much butter, but spuds in Wild Atlantic monkfish, new garden potatoes, leek and miso, are diced to a brunoise, along with fresh leeks and a miso butter foam of roasted monkfish bones, katsuobushi and kelp that might well be waves from the Atlantic, a field or two away, lapping gently on the tongue.

Tender Burren beef throbs with flavour, beautifully offset with verdant crisp Moy asparagus, wilted garlic leaves and beech mushroom in a stonking Madeira jus.

Sugar time. Wexford strawberry and custard is a delightful vanilla rice pudding with peppy nutmeg, a fine partner for macerated strawberry, topped with fresh mint and hibiscus. 

Biting cocoa notes of Manjari dark chocolate cremeux are countered with caramelised roasted hazelnuts and sweet and earthy malt barley ice cream.

Finally, pistachio madeleines with lemon curd uncover appetites I had long thought sated for a final bout of gluttony.

Sommelier Cecile expertly deploys a wine list with heavy Francophile leanings, unsurprising considering her nationality, and we love a mighty Loire Sancerre (Daniel Chotard, 2021), crisp, grassy, grapefruit notes and lush, lingering salinity.

Simon and Freddy Haden, proprietors of Gregan’s Castle, have always had an unerring nose for unearthing future culinary superstars and I always felt McCauley’s superb cooking there merited a star.

There is now a sense, however, that he is refining his style further still, constructing dishes around superbly sourced local produce, including much grown by himself in their extensive gardens and orchards nearby.

He then gradually shears away all but the most essential elements of each dish, purity of flavour and texture ever the end goal.

While budgetary constraints may have gifted us an almost accidentally wonderful restaurant, I suspect we are only at the beginning of a journey for both Homestead Cottage and McCauley’s cooking, a journey with all the potential to land somewhere truly remarkable.

The Verdict:

• Food: 9
• Wines: 8.5
• Service: 9
• Value: 9
• Atmosphere: 9