The best meal you can't reserve a place for--in Galena!

Lovely Dining Companion and I celebrated our first anniversary with a trip to…Galena! How we ended up in there is a story for another board but had we not chosen Galena we would not have discovered the best meal you can’t reserve a place for.

The Inn at Irish Hollow is a small bed-and-breakfast about twenty minutes east of Galena in the heart of farm country. The inn was once the general store for the long-gone town of Rodden, Illinois. The b&b offers several rooms in the main building as well as three cottages a short walk away. There are some 500 acres surrounding the property and, although we couldn’t snowshoe or cross-country ski as planned, we were able to hike for several hours on the inn’s property.

LDC found the Inn on the web and, despite an apparently high package price for the weekend ($465 for two nights, two breakfasts, and a dinner), we liked what we saw well enough to visit. We could not have found a better way to spend our money. You can put your own price on the breakfasts and dinner after you read what I have to say, but we were exceedingly pleased with the weekend and didn’t feel that we overpaid a dime.

Dinner is served only once a week, on Saturday nights. I gather it is included in the packages and, perhaps, also if you stay at least two nights, though undoubtedly the owners are the best source of that kind of information. Given the size of the b&b, there are a maximum of six couples that can have dinner; the tables are set up in the “reception area”/gift shop which is to say the old general store itself (proudly displaying original shelving, counters, and even the old safe!). The inn was still decorated for Christmas and it is inconceivable to us that a single item more could have been added. Excessive to the point of charming. If we wanted to, I suppose, we could complain that the century-old windows needed tightening and that the old tub in the our bathroom needed resurfacing... but the food…!

I neglected to record the breakfasts because I was so busy enjoying them. We started with oatmeal. But that’s like saying of a filet mignon, we had a piece of meat. This was Irish steel-cut oats topped with a miniature bananas Foster, garnished with crème fraiche and pomegranate seeds. It came together beautifully, the pomegranate seeds being precisely the right touch. Though the bananas Foster were a touch sweet for me, I cannot find fault with the taste or the exquisite presentation. Indeed, exceptional presentation would come to be a hallmark of every dish we were served. The oatmeal was followed by large pumpkin cranberry muffins, moist and hearty and redolent of pumpkin. Not too sweet or too rich (though perhaps a trifle large) and a perfect foil for the next course: All this was prelude to the “main course”—a “breakfast Napoleon” with lightly scrambled eggs, shiitake, and caramelized onions sandwiched between small squares of puff pastry. Wow! Simply magnificent. There’s really no other word. Coffee is from Chicago’s own Intelligentsia (my personal favorite) and they’ve arranged for their own Irish Hollow blend: a flavorful, medium-bodied roast. I’m personally inclined towards robust full-bodied coffees, but this was much better than simply “good.” I don’t think I’ve had a better breakfast at a b&b. Ever.

Dinner that evening was served at 7:00 pm. Seven courses spread over nearly three hours. We began with a shiitake cap with chevre, very slightly sweetened walnuts bits, and tarragon. A simple dish, elegantly presented and a harbinger of delights to come. The next course (the official appetizer, I suppose) was salmon: perfectly—and I mean perfectly—poached in champagne sitting atop a bed of black fettuccine, lightly dressed with a lemon garlic dill sauce. The garlic was in larger pieces, lending it a very light flavor instead of the assertive punch normally associated with finely chopped garlic. A touch of paprika, cayenne, and a teensy bit of brown sugar gave the sauce an orange hue and just a hint of sweetness. The dish was heaven and I don’t even like salmon!

At this point, the plan for the evening became clear: sit back, relax, loosen the belt, and try to prepare mentally for what lay ahead. Lovely Dining Companion, for those of you who have not met her, is a diminutive person: only five feet tall and barely one hundred pounds. Though not as fascinated by food as her husband, she has a streak of adventuresomeness but, given her size, she isn’t famous for packing it away (like her husband). In retrospect, the amount of the food she ate on Saturday was testament to its quality. We both waddled out. Slowly.

Next up, soup. A Yukon Gold-apple decoction with crème fraiche and garnished with several slices of dried apple and a knotted bundle of chives. Guinness lent a tawny color and a velvety richness more than an identifiable flavor. The overall effect was of a warm vichyssoise with an indefinable essence of something…the apples.

Salad followed soup: assorted spring greens, black grapes, toasted pecans (a touch of brown sugar and cayenne), the whole topped with a poached (?), fanned pear, port-soaked cranberries, shavings of Irish Dubliner cheese, and an orange balsamic vinaigrette. In my description it sounds busy. It was not. By now we had long forgotten that we were in an old general store miles from the nearest town. The other five tables appeared to be as pleased as we were; the satellite station featuring classical selections and the conversation of a dozen people were just background enough. The tables were widely spaced and only one server worked the room. (Were this a comment on the b&b qua b&b, I would have some wonderful things to say about Matthew. He was virtually the only face we saw during our stay, handled everything, and—best of all—knew the answer to every single question we asked about the food or its preparation.)

Our only concern as time passed was our ability to continue eating. As the meal was served at a leisurely pace, the passing of time allowed each course to slowly catch up with us. Except for an initial lag, the service was well-timed and allowed us the freedom to enjoy and relax. For in addition to all the serving and plate clearing, Matthew managed to find time to fill our water glasses or our wine glasses should they need attention. The wine, I ought to note, was a Harwood cabernet, 2002 (13.5% alcohol but surprisingly well-balanced for so young a cab). It might not have been my first choice, perhaps, but it was a well-chosen complement to the dinner.

This was the perfect moment for a respite and we got it: a scoop of lemon sorbet. The pause that refreshes. It was flavorful and lemony, tart without the bite. (For those who read my Aria review, you’ll know I love a great sorbet. This was not among the best that I have ever had, but it was certainly better than most. I am slowly coming to appreciate just how difficult it is to make a sorbet well.)

Without further ado: our entrée. Sugar-crusted beef tenderloin with a cranberry demiglaze. Sweet potatoes Anna with a mild blue cheese and parmesan. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the vegetable was Brussels sprouts. I love them but many people do not and I was intrigued to see them in a presentation such as this. They were baby sprouts, halved and steamed, served with a light lemon garlic sauce. A perfect accompaniment.

I didn’t mention the home-made bread. Kalamata olive and rosemary served with a rosemary butter. Nothing extraordinary but fresh and hot. Again, a well-chosen item to complement the entrée and, indeed, the dinner.

This is also the moment to note that when you reserve a room, you are specifically asked for your food allergies, dislikes, and so forth. Ours was honored. Moreover, we overheard Matthew’s description of another diner’s entrée. He did not have the beef but his mushroom ravioli sounded like a dish that received just as much care and loving attention as did ours. In fact, just last night, LDC said that she was so tempted by Matthew’s description of it when he served it that she almost wanted to trade her tenderloin for it!

As we slowly progressed, our concern grew whether room would still exist for dessert. In an effort to second guess, I predicted chocolate. But even I was unprepared for what closed the meal: flourless chocolate cake with a ganache topping. Ordinary enough, I suppose but the chocolate was from a bar made by Vosges called “Naga;” it includes in the milk chocolate both “Sweet Indian curry” and flaked coconut. Both flavors could be detected and neither was strong enough to be assertive in any way. (Those smart Vosges people have several other flavored bars as well and now when I see them, I know enough to buy them!) Oh, and the cake was “topped” with a cutout of a pine tree, in chocolate, of course. LDC, who does not care for coconut, pronounced herself well-pleased with the dessert in the best of all possible ways: she ate most of it. And following that not-small meal, that in itself was the highest vote of pleasure.

For all my ooh-ing and ah-ing, the meal was not without its flaws or missteps. The cranberry demiglaze on the meat was too sweet. The tenderloin itself, while a very good piece of meat, might have been better. But these are niggling comments. The meal, as I hope I have conveyed, was extraordinary. It would have been a wonderful night out in Chicago. That it was in a bed-and-breakfast, miles outside of Galena, Illinois (and that it was our first dinner in celebration mode) made it all the more remarkable, and enjoyable. It’s too bad that the public can’t come in to enjoy this quality. But, I think, that would detract a bit from the experience.

I haven’t even mentioned our second breakfast, replete with chocolate cinnamon ginger scones, or the fresh fruit “cocktail,” or the eggs florentine with Canadian bacon, cilantro hollandaise, etc. etc. Even that mere listing of items should be enough, in the context of the rest of this post, to suggest the extraordinary quality of the breakfast.

Matthew told us when we checked in that a substantial part of their business comes from repeat customers. They do very little advertising. In fact, although they are written up on a number of sites, actual advertising is nearly impossible to find. They don’t need it. So long as the property continues to be so well-maintained and the food of this quality, we can see returning too. We also think you should visit; indeed, we think you’d be foolish not to. There must be something you can do in Galena