The Courthouse

Piero Melis is a precise and fluent cook, a chef whose Sardinian-background colours and animates every dish he offers: smoked tuna carpaccio with lemon oil dressing; duck spring roll with white ragu; linguini with blue fin tuna ragu: house-smoked duck with Calvados foam. This is elegant and accomplished cooking, with the sort of flavours you simply don’t expect to find when close to the Leitrim-Donegal border, and value for money is excellent. The room is simple and relaxing, the staff are all local charmers, and make sure to try the Sardinian wines Mr Melis imports himself – they are rare and special bottles – and make a night of it in the simple rooms upstairs, then enjoy one of Mr Melis’s stonking breakfasts, before heading wavewards to Bundoran, with the board on top of the car.