Durrow is idyllic. It was one of the first 'planned' towns in Ireland and has a nostalgic Sunday afternoon feel to it. Most of the shop liveries are hand-painted and a square sits quaintly its centre. The castle has its own arched entrance that draws the eye inwards.

Shelly and Peter Stokes bought Castle Durrow in 1998 and have spent a considerable amount of time, sweat and moolah renovating what had previously been a school run by nuns. It is now a decadent and luxurious hotel.

New rooms are being added to a converted stables too and there are plans to add a conservatory which will overlook the gardens.

Shelly Stokes has applied her own eclectic taste to the interior design and the whole is a marvellous miscellany of inspired/bold furniture choices in subtly themed rooms.

We were staying in the Ashbrook Suite, which is about the size of a suburban semi-D and nearly the same price as your average mortgage payment for a few nights. If you are slightly more impecunious, I recommend the superb Oriental rooms at the top of the house as an affordable decadence.

The restaurant at Durrow is an elegant dining room: chandeliers, white table cloths, pristine silverware and high-backed chairs. We were seated beside a large window, overlooking the garden. In an unusual move, the restaurant charges a standard 50 for a three-course dinner. I think it is a good idea and may well prevent shocks at the end of a meal. It also prevents stealth charges being applied to your bill for sides and the like, a practice I have never been a fan of.

Staff were friendly, professional and more than willing to accommodate all manner of requests/inquiries. We started with homemade bread accompanied by a warm salsa of tomatoes, chives, tarragon, olive oil and a raspberry vinaigrette. It was a sublime taste experience and we devoured it. Next, an amuse bouche of sea bass with black olive, more tomato and dill. Much of the ingredients we had seen/sniffed in a tour of the castle's organic garden earlier that day. It went down well and tickled our taste-buds for some serious eating.

Red snapper, crabmeat, sweetcorn, scallions, saffron and parsley sauce . . . the main constituents of KR's first dish were well-cooked and well presented although the saffron and parsley sauces were on the bland side of delicate. My consomme of Durrow beef with spiced won-tons, vegetables and herbs was faultless. A subtle Oriental flavour pervaded both starters.

We chose a glass of house red and white just to see how they fared; a good Merlot for me and a reasonable Sauvignon Blanc for KR at 5 a pop weren't bad. For our mains, we chose a 2005 white Chateauneuf du Pape with a beguiling nose and an elegant body.

My char-grilled Durrow calf 's liver with sage mash, creamed cabbage, onion rings and shallot sauce was a lesson in gluttony. Several times I reached a point where I had to promise my groaning stomach that I would not shovel in any more and several times something else would catch my eye on the plate.

Such pleasure, such pain. KR's halibut with stuffed tomato, flageolet bean cassoulet, braised fennel and white wine cream was dangerously moreish too. The halibut was filleted, cooked and presented beautifully. The organic flavours from the garden were never suffocated by anything else.

The walk-ways around the house are perfect for a stroll or, if you prefer, there are tables overlooking the grounds where you can sit and have pre-/post-prandial drinks. From the front of the house, an obelisk is visible; built, we were told, to commemorate a daughter killed accidently by her father, the lord of the house, who mistook her for an intruder. Apparently, if you walk around it 25 times you will see the 'Lady in White'. We didn't try it out, we could barely crawl back to our room, never mind walk.

Desserts came in the form of a Castle Durrow dessert plate apiece: raspberry crumble, orange and white chocolate mousse, honeycomb ice cream on a homemade cookie and tiramisu. The ice cream stood out as a clear winner . . . the tiramisu seemed to be a tee-totaller as neither of us could taste any alcohol from it. After dessert, I'm afraid my tasting function retired from active service and slouched off to his room, happy yet tired, where it slept as soundly as it had slept in a long, long time.

Despite the gruelling journey we had to make to get there, a visit to Castle Durrow comes highly recommended, even if it is just for the restaurant, but if you can, stay a while and enjoy the comforts of the castle, the warm welcome and the respite from a life spent in boomtown.