As a treat we booked in to Neven Maguires Mac Nean House for Sunday Lunch about two weeks ago.
The restaurant and waiting area is really elegantly designed, I love the shades of taupe, cream and aubergine and I’ll definitely be taking some inspiration from it for when I finally get round to decorating my living room.
We’ve been for Sunday lunch there last year and noticed this time that the price had gone up to €40. Considering the high standard of food and service this is not bad however I found the selection for each course limited, with only 3 choices for each. I would have appreciated an extra choice for each course.
Although the menu is a three course set menu, there are lots of little extras such as an amuse bouche of mushroom velouté which was beautifully creamy and packed full of flavour. I would have been extremely happy if this had been my starter course
An assortment of freshly made breads and dipping sauces also came out before our starters, my particular favourite being the homemade brown bread.
For starter I chose Carrot and Ginger soup with Duck sausage and Pineapple, mainly because I wasn’t mad about the other options. The soup was indeed lovely and I enjoyed the theatrics of pouring the soup over the sausage at the table but I would have liked another option for my starter to choose from instead.
I could’t wait for the main course, I had ordered Dry Aged Beef Striploin with glazed pearl onion and braised feather blade cepe veloute and it did not disappoint. I could have have had a bowl of the sauce on its own and been quite happy as it was so delicious! A selection of honey coated vegetable and garlic potatoes accompanied the mains. The extra mashed potatoes we got deserve a particular mention for being so good, they were so creamy and full of butter that they probably cut a few years of our hearts life span!
Dessert is one of my favourite courses and again I was a little disappointed with the selection but that probably down to my own personal taste. As it was a summer menu all desserts were cold but I have a preference for just out of the oven warm desserts. I chose the lemon and lime panna cotta, meringue, poached summer berries, passionfruit syrup and passion sorbet. It was really light and fresh but I did request to swap with my husband who had choose the crispy caramel and peanut mouuse, this I really liked and immediately regretted not ordering this for myself
All in all Sunday Lunch at Mac Nean Restaurant is a really nice treat, one that I would really recommend, food was delicious and presented beautifully. My only negative really was the lack of choice but that might just be that I’m a bit of a fussy eater!