Tatler Magazine, August 2000

Rosemary Shrager is of the jolly, Fat Lady school: no nonsense and let's stuff a chicken leg with chicken liver and rosemary, or wrestle with a loin of venison... A lesson with Shrager is a culinary roller coaster ride, accelerated by a barrage of advice and liberal scoldings.

We're talking curing duck breasts here, braising halibut and concocting rich wine sauces. And rich means rich: the reckless splashing of disconcertingly good wine, the best extra-virgin olive oil and cream produced by an entire Jersey herd. Butter, mercifully, is unsalted. Reduction, reduction, reduction is the only way to make a sauce and only the best will do, says Shrager.

That evening, in Amhuinnsuidhe's panelled upstairs dining room, the duck breast is transformed into exquisite, wafer-thin slivers, the halibut is heavenly and the raspberry mouse leaves one floating.