Jim B.
Yelp
My wife and I went to Ireland for our 20th anniversary and Pembroke Hotel was our first stop. The only negative thing I can say is they set the bar so high that every other hotel we stayed at in Ireland was something of a let down.
I am about to use some superlatives in this review, but rest assured, they are accurate and unexaggerated.
The staff was very patient and helpful and forgiving (it was my first day and I had no idea what I was doing). The room was great and spacious, the bathroom was very nice and I almost wanted to just stay in the room.
The area where the hotel really shined however, and the reason I am leaving this review was the restaurant. We checked in, crashed in the room and went to sleep. The next morning we dragged ourselves down to the restaurant for breakfast, with no idea what we were in for.
I ordered the Irish breakfast which looked like it had a little of everything. Here is the thing, from the first thing I tasted, carrying on to the next, until everything had been tried, everything was better than the last, and it was all the best food I had ever had at a hotel for breakfast. I was shocked. Even the orange juice tasted like it had been freshly squeezed by angels.
The server told us that everything was locally-sourced from farmers in the area. As buzz-wordy as this sounded to my ears, it was impossible to argue with the results. It was awesome.
Later that night we came back and went to the dinner restaurant and ordered a steak. The server there was kind enough to introduce me to cocktails, to which I was unaccustomed at the time. He brought me an Old Fashioned, which he delivered with great flourish. He brought it to me on a literal covered silver platter, and when he uncovered it, a plume of smoke gave way, revealing the glass, like some kind of magician appearing on stage. The drink was great, a great introduction to whiskey cocktails. The evening was finished off with the best banana cheese cake I have ever had.
We left Kilkenny with great expectations thanks to our experience at Pembroke. Unfortunately, as mentioned none of the other hotels met the bar set by Pembroke, but we still had a great time. I think next time we'll just spend the whole time in Kilkenny. :)