Crowd-pleasing cuisine is Tipp’s odds-on favourite

Sadler’s

Call me a snob but, in most circumstances, the sight of a television screen on the wall of a restaurant would have me turning on my heel and leaving straightaway. I’ll make an exception in a pub for a major sporting fixture, but as moving wallpaper? No thanks. So I surprise myself by finding the backdrop of racing from Doncaster at Sadler’s in Fethard (my Tipperary friend tells me it’s pronounced Feth-ard rather than the Fet-herd I’ve been saying) interesting rather than annoying, and concluding it only adds to the horsey atmosphere.

You don’t expect to drive down a country road in the middle of nowhere for miles and miles and then happen upon a bustling restaurant at a crossroads, but that’s what happens to us as we make a diversion off the motorway on the way back from west Cork to Dublin to check out the latest addition to the Magnier family’s hospitality — er — stable. (Sorry.) Sadler’s seems to function both as a classy canteen for Coolmore staff, somewhere to entertain clients, and as a meet-up spot for locals.

The Magniers of Coolmore own the magnificent Cashel Palace Hotel and also Mikey Ryan’s gastropub, both in nearby Cashel, as well as this building in Fethard, formerly home to Dooks restaurant, which closed at the end of last year. Now the walls are covered with horsey memorabilia, bridles, photos and press clippings, and there are equine motifs at every turn. There’s even a decorative wall of horseshoes on the way to the loo. It could be naff but, somehow, isn’t.

The menu at Sadler’s, designed by Stephen Hayes, doesn’t seek to reinvent the culinary wheel, but rather to offer a selection of popular, crowd-pleasing dishes executed to a high standard using top-quality ingredients. Hayes landed a Michelin star for the Bishop’s Buttery at Cashel Palace and also oversees Mikey Ryan’s; many suppliers are common to all three.

The Reuben sandwich comes on sourdough baked in-house and features layers of thinly sliced, house-cured corned beef from O’Dwyer’s in Cashel rather than pastrami, layered with pickles, sauerkraut and Gubbeen cheese in an Irish twist on the classic. It’s a great sandwich, substantial and properly tasty, for the bargain price of €11.25.

A side of ‘kinky slaw’ — so-called not for any salacious reason but because it has a spicy kick to it and the first description of it on the menu had a typo — is excellent too, properly crunchy with fennel, radish and pink endive. We appreciate the modest quantum of dressing, and the tangle of pea shoots on top.

The beer batter on the two pieces of fish in the fish and chips is so crisp that it shatters when you hit it with a fork. The fish inside nicely steamed, the minted pea puree spot on, the hand-made tartare sauce caper- and gherkin-heavy and assertive in a good way. Chips are hand-cut, skin-on and triple-cooked; they could have done with a fraction longer in the fryer but are good nonetheless.

Having stopped for a late breakfast of a shared mid-morning crab sandwich (€15.50) incorporating both white and brown meat (be still our beating hearts) on soft wholemeal bread at Rohu’s Country Market in Innishannon — how could we not, having spotted broadcaster Zara King’s Instagram declaration that they are the best in the country, and I think she might be right — we have no room for even a shared dessert between the two of us; it would simply be a waste. With tap water to drink, our bill for two comes to €35.20 before service.

Almost no one is drinking — I can’t spot a single bottle of wine on a table — but almost everyone orders an individual pudding, with substantial helpings of dark chocolate brownie, fruit upside down cake with toffee and custard, and vegan vanilla panna cotta all made by pastry chef Melissa Lynch bringing smiles to faces all around us. (I imagine jockeys are banned from Sadler’s.)

Over the coming weeks, the restaurant will begin to open for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights but, in the meantime, should you find yourself in this neck of the woods, you can drop by for 3fe coffee, or book in for brunch, lunch or a Sunday roast. This is horse country, no doubt about it, and as parents start to panic about the yawning chasm of the school holidays ahead, with summer camps selling out quicker than Olivia Rodrigo tickets, a day trip to Fethard to visit the Horse Country Experience, an interactive museum dedicated to all things equine, followed by lunch at Sadler’s, could make for a special day out.

Budget

A Ploughman’s sandwich is €10.95.

Blowout

Gravlax followed by a beef burger and dessert could set you back €80 for two before drinks or service.

The rating

9/10 food 9/10 ambience 9/10 value

27/30