A work of ART!
Ballyfin oozes taste... scenic gardens, stunning paintings and exquisite food. It truly deserves all the plaudits it gets
THE Coote family, who built one of Ireland’s grandest neo-classical houses, took as their motto ‘vincit veritas’ which means ‘truth conquers’. But such was their determination to do things properly, when it came to building and decorating, it was said that they lived by a rather different motto: ‘cost what it may .’
Ballyfin is one of the most impressive hotels in the world, winning Condé Nast’s prestigious Best Hotel in the World in 2016 and just this week Ireland’s Hotel of the Year at the AA Hospitality Awards. And yes, it comes with appropriate prices.
Rescued in 2002 from slow but potentially fatal decline by Chicagoans Fred and Kay Kreybiehl, it has been meticulously restored at a reputed cost around $50m.
It took eight years to bring the grand Regency house, near Mountrath in County Laois, which spent almost a century as a boy’s school, back to pristine condition.
Teams of specialists attended to elements such as the stonework, floors and the ruined Turner conservatory that involved replacing some 4,000 panes of glass, no two of them the same size.
The scale of the work, the attention to detail and determination to get it exactly right is, quite simply, breathtaking. A ND so, Ballyfin is unique and I use that word advisedly. There is literally nowhere on the planet quite like it. Other billionaires who could take on such a project would do so to have an amazing home. The Krehbiels, however, took on Ballyfin with a view to housing their remarkable collection of Irish art and to share it all with others, albeit, at a price.
You can stay at Ballyfin, enjoy completely private access to the 640 acre estate and eat outstanding food, staying in one of the 21 rooms, each of them unique. And the house is so big that, for most of the time, you will think that you’re the only people here.
Approach along the long, winding avenue through the 18th-century parkland and be captivated by the view of the 28-acre lake (dug, by hand, in the Cootes’ day). And there it is, the stunning and imposing façade of the house.
Our car was whisked away and as soon as we entered the hall we were handed, as are all guests, a glass of champagne. Tea was also on offer but when champagne fits the surroundings better.
After a few minutes acclimatising to the Wellesley-Pole suite (named after a former owner and half-brother of the Duke of Wellington), we were given a tour of the house by our host, himself an old boy of the Patrician Brothers’ school that once occupied these very rooms.
Before dinner we decamped to the vast basement and had a martini in the delightfully informal pub-style bar which we had entirely to ourselves; most guests, it appears, never make it quite this far as the much grander rooms upstairs are too fascinating to leave.
The food at Ballyfin is fitting of such a grand hotel.
The kitchen is in the highly skilled hands of Sam Moody, who worked with Michael Caines at Gidleigh Park in Devon before going to the Bath Priory where he had a Michelin star for five years.
It’s surely only a matter of time before he achieves that here with his cooking, which he described – and I concur – as “simple, with a focus on big flavours, balance and detail”.
Sam has an eight-acre walled kitchen garden, with polytunnels, to draw on and, he loves nothing better than foraging for mushrooms in the demesne woods in the autumn.
The managing director of the restoration project and, now, of the hotel, is the great gardener, Jim Reynolds.
Our tasting menu, which we had paired with wines by our excellent sommelier, was as impressive as the grand dining room itself where tables are so generously spaced it’s rather like being waited on by your own staff.
Highlights included a tartare of Wexford rose veal with crisp, peppery winter radish from the garden, an egg yolk and the caper-like tang of nasturtium, paired with a bone dry, minerally Savennières from the Loire; monkfish served with chicken juices and – cleverly – with salsify which is not known as the vegetable oyster for nothing.
This was paired perfectly with a white Fixin 1er cru from Burgundy; St Tola ashed goa’s cheese came with new season rhubarb, a very smart combination, as was the introduction of caraway into this dish, a spice that’s generally very underused.
This was surprisingly paired, but brilliantly, as it turned out with an off-dry Loire Chenin Blanc from the estimable Domaine des Baumard.
The dessert however, reached celestial heights: a properly bitter, profoundly dark chocolate ganache with – a new and joyful discovery for me – caramelised milk and hazelnut crunch.
The vin santo from Rocca delle Macie was, again, not a match that would immediately have sprung to mind, but it was perfect. That’s the joy of leaving such decisions to an expert sommelier.
The problem in writing about Ballyfin is the inadequacy of mere words to convey a true sense of
what staying there is really like. But ‘flawless’ is one that has to be applied not just to the restoration of house but to the service and the sense that nothing is too much trouble for the outstanding staff.
Ballyfin could so easily have been either overdone in terms of its rehabilitation or have a sense of being in a kind of awe-inspiring museum.
However, sensitivity is apparent in all the work done and, in the hospitality. We felt we were honoured guests in somebody’s own very grand but very welcoming house. With, as a huge bonus, a Michelinstarred chef who, in keeping with the whole Ballyfin ethos, spares nothing in getting everything exactly right.