Restaurant Review: Having a good Thyme in Athlone's Michelin-Bibbed eatery

I didn’t plan this but a review of Athlone’s most garlanded restaurant of recent times is apt now RTÉ has run a three-part series, Futureville Ireland, envisioning how the town could look in the future. 

Athlone is my home town and I’ve written harsh words about it in the past, mainly about the planning decisions which have destroyed Main Street. 

It has a truly beautiful location, fascinating history (as the main crossing point of the Shannon), enormous potential, and other good restaurants besides Thyme (Dead Centre Brewing, Fatted Calf, Left Bank Bistro, etc), so let’s hope change is afoot. 

Thyme was awarded a well-deserved Michelin Bib in 2016 and as it was five years since I ate there, I was curious to see how it was getting along.

Located just beside Burgess Department Store (where my parents worked) it is metres from the river (but sadly with no view). 

The room is not large but is comfortable and welcoming with a mix of large and small tables which were filled with a mix of families and couples and buzzy conversation.

Chef-proprietor John Coffey’s cooking is modern Irish, following a similar playbook to the likes of Derry Clarke (formerly of L’Ecrivain) — seasonal top quality Irish ingredients cooked with classical French and Italian flair.

Crusty textured sourdough arrived as soon as we had ordered, crusty and textured and served with an intriguing walnut butter made from fresh and pickled walnuts which added a pleasing sweet savoury tang.

I had considered ordering the ham hock as I remember how good it was on my last visit, but had to try the ballotine of partridge (€16), my favourite game bird, and one I rarely see on menus. 

The deboned flesh was delicate and subtly sweet with just a hint of wildness coming through, a savoury jus added richness, some ‘delicata’ squash purée was silky and nutty, kalette leaves (kale crossed with broccoli) added a bitter-savoury note, while pumpkin seeds added crunch. A perfect dish.

The Engineer’s Mossfield cheese, heritage beetroot and walnut tart (€14) also worked brilliantly, served at room temperature in a crisp buttery pastry case, the piquant organic Mossfield cheese had the texture of crème brûlée and was nicely cut by the seasonal beetroot and walnuts on top, it was also pretty as a picture. 

Lamb shoulder (€30) had been slow cooked and shaped into a cylinder and was deliciously meaty. 

Surrounding it were the elements of a deconstructed ratatouille for the meat to pick up accents: sweet red pepper, smoked aubergine purée and a nutty brunoise of courgette cut through with basil. 

A fluffy potato gnocchi had the serious flaw of being on its own, I would have liked five or six more it tasted so good.

Cod with spaetzle (€30) was beautifully cooked and a warm tartare sauce and ramson (wild garlic) emulsion lifted the delicate flesh. 

Sweet young chopped cabbage with bacon and a smooth champ were our side vegetables and we finished them off too.

Thyme’s wine list is short but pleasingly eclectic and includes an orange wine, a German riesling, and a Greek moschofilero and a xinomavro. Prices start at €35 and there are selections by the glass and carafe, the latter something I would love to see more often. 

I chose Verónica Salgado Ribera del Duero a bright fruit-forward organic minimal intervention red which was worth its €45 price. 

There are also beers from the excellent Dead Centre Brewing taproom next door, including one commissioned for the restaurant.

Desserts cost €10 and of course I ordered the Baked Alaska with pear, honey and ginger — this throwback to my childhood (my mother used to make it) was well worth reviving. 

Better again was a perfectly balanced creamy textured coffee custard tart with whiskey ice cream and milk crisp — an Irish coffee made flesh. 

So despite the fact you will have to brave Athlone’s traffic to get to Thyme, it will be so worth it. 

Better again, come by boat up the cruelly underused River Shannon. This is old school proper cooking with seasonal ingredients; every town in Ireland should have something like this.

I’d like to finish with an extract from Vona Groarke’s beautiful poem ‘Athlones’ set beside the restaurant.

“... light tinkles down through Northgate Street like someone running late, all streaming hair and necklaces that chink like moorings in a breeze, only to trip on a Butcher’s awnings or be splayed in Burgess’ window like a pomegranate on an oilcloth …”

THE VERDICT:

• Food: 9/10
• Wine: 9/10
• Service: 9/10
• Atmosphere: 8/10
• Value: 9/10