What’s on the Menu – The Lodge at Ashford Castle launches new Winter menu
Wilde’s Restaurant goes back to basics with a new fine dining menu that is both classic and creative
A new pared-back winter menu has been announced for Wilde’s restaurant at the four-star Lodge at Ashford Castle, featuring fuss-free beautifully prepared dishes made from estate-grown, foraged, and local ingredients.
Created by executive Chef Jonathan Keane, with the input of his team, the new menu shuns complex recipes in favour of letting the flavours do the talking, combining imagination with the finest of Irish produce.
New starter dishes include Kelly’s White Pudding Scotch Egg served with red pepper sauce and Gubbeen chorizo, tamarind spiced Andarl Farm Pork Belly served with barbeque sauce, cucumber and fennel salsa and the ever-classic lobster and prawn cocktail served with a Marie Rose sauce.
In the mains, guests can enjoy the Lodge’s new signature Beef Wellington dish served with truffled brie pomme purée, watercress and beef jus. A 250g Rib-eye steak and Herb Crusted Rack of Mayo Lamb with garden peas, turnip and gratin dauphinois also feature on the new menu.
The latest Wilde’s menu will also cater to plant-based eaters, with plenty options to choose from including a vegan risotto duxelle served with wild mushroom, sea truffle and mushroom ketchup and a vegan garden moussaka featuring a ragout of vegetables, lentil bolognaise and tapenade.
Speaking about the new menu, Chef Jonathan said: “Over the past few months we took the time to reinvigorate the menus for our fine dining restaurant Wilde’s, with a big focus on the classics. Our latest recipes are inspired by traditional dishes such as the scotch egg, salmon gravadlax and baked Alaska that were a common sight on menus in the 70s and 80s, which we have given a contemporary and creative twist.
“Our new winter menu is a veritable calling card for some of the best food producers in Ireland including Andarl Farm, Velvet Cloud, St Tola Goats Cheese and Cuinneog Farmhouse. Paired with ingredients sourced locally or grown and foraged on the Ashford Estate, our dishes are filled with the flavours of the West and our philosophy is simple: only use the best ingredients, don’t over complicate the dish and cook with passion.”
The new menu has been paired with a unique wine list that focuses on organic, biodynamically grown and low intervention wines. The Lodge at Ashford Castle will be one of the first hotels in Ireland to offer a sustainable and organic wine list with over 100 different labels to choose from.
Chosen to complement the new menu at Wilde’s, the new organic wine list includes a selection of wines from Bouchard Finlayson winery in South Africa, Domaine Vincent Girardin in France, Dog Point Vineyard in New Zealand and Domaine Bousquet in Argentina to name but a few.
About The Lodge at Ashford
The Lodge at Ashford Castle is part of the Red Carnation Hotel Collection.
The four-star country hotel sits within 350 acres of perfectly manicured grounds on the Ashford Castle Estate. Steeped in history, The Lodge dates back to 1865 when it was originally built as the home of Ashford Castle’s Estate Manager during the Guinness family’s ownership of the Ashford Estate.
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Telephone: +353 94 954 5400
