Food, glorious food: Mouthwatering guide to culinary Ireland
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Granted, as someone who gets fat on a professional basis, dining out and discovering local delicacies ranks very high on my list of priorities when heading on holiday — safe to say, it might even make or break a holiday, and so I always put in plenty of advance research.
But even if you are less obsessed with the nosebag than I, few and far between are the people who return from a holiday — either at home or abroad — without at least one or two fond food memories of a glorious meal while dining out in a special restaurant or of chancing upon a local foodstuff in a market that caused you to swoon in epicurean ecstasy.
There are still far too many Gaels trumpeting that tired old cliché about “the food they ate on holiday in …” as the reason they rarely eat seafood in Ireland; i.e. people saying that no other food even remotely compares to the fish dish they ate in a little quayside café at sunset in France/Italy/Spain etc.
Granted, the sun may have eclipsed any Irish showing and the location undoubtedly had its charm, but we do ‘location’ very nicely indeed in Ireland as well and there is every likelihood that the wonderful fish and shellfish being consumed was caught in Irish waters and exported abroad, especially to France and Spain, and distance travelled means that in fact what is on your plate is inferior to how it would be served up in Ireland.
Add in world class beef, lamb and dairy, along with superlative Irish produce from one of the most clement growing climates in the world and you don’t need to travel at all to eat well, most especially, as the Irish hospitality sector, the restaurants, cafés and hotels, get exponentially better with each passing year, and there are now restaurants in Ireland that could hold their heads high in any international company.
But — and there’s always a but, isn’t there — that post-holiday epicurean euphoria can be tempered somewhat when alone in a darkened room perusing the damage racked up on the credit card bill, and, sorry to say, even though food and drink served up in Irish restaurants is of premium quality, the closing bill can often cause crippling arthritis of the wallet — and that is not because the hospitality sector is full of gougers out to take you for every last cent.
In fact, premium Irish food and drink is exceptionally good value but the costs associated with delivering it to the plate, in terms of staffing, rents, produce, energy etc, are some of the highest in Europe — often these restaurants are operating just barely above the break-even point. What this all means is that if you are planning an Irish staycation with a distinct gourmet angle this year and you don’t burn the smaller bills in your home vaults to clear space for your diamonds, then you’ll need to be very canny about your dining plans.
But before you give up and hit the interweb to start browsing package holidays in Santa Ponsa, fear not, help is at hand, we have you covered — a well-fed Irish staycation is entirely possible with a little judicious advance planning and that includes a couple of nice meals in very nice restaurants — and, please, unless you really are down to the wire, financially, do yourself a favour and try and eat in at least one or two of the many superb Irish restaurants, which not only offer world class food but truly unique Irish hospitality that is the envy of the global hospitality industry.
But the bulk of your eating will be done elsewhere in the form of picnics and other al fresco dining options, either eating from your own ‘hamper’ assembled on the fly from the best of local produce or dining on street food, and then, come evening time, you can kick out the jams and go the full hog back in your holiday rental accommodation and serve yourself up a mighty spread to rival any restaurant offering.
We don’t doubt the location will be premium or as premium as your budget allows and the quality of Irish holiday rental accommodation overall is again world class. And if you shop properly in the right places then you can eat like a king or queen for a fraction of the restaurant price; granted you’ll have to wash the dishes at some stage — go on, leave them ’til the morning! — but there’s nobody going to kick you out of this particular ‘restaurant’ and certainly no worries about trying to get a rarer-than-hens-teeth taxi or condemning any of your party to designated driver status.
Research should also include finding out about the local specialty food producers in the area you are visiting and then seeking out their produce, most likely available in independent food retailers though local branches of Supervalu tend to be good at supporting local producers in their hinterland.
The closer to ‘home’ you buy a product, the better it is likelier to be, and you may even learn to taste the ‘terroir’ of the product. Look out for cheesemakers, baker-members of Real Bread Ireland for real bread, charcutiers and producers of cured meats, fish smokers, local growers, for fresh fruit and salads. Buy a good bottle of wine, find a stunning location and enjoy one of the finest inexpensive meals in the country, anywhere in the country.
In many parts of the country it is possible to do a food tour and all stops invariably offer an opportunity to at least nibble and most definitely purchase for later. These might comprise a guided tour of several local producers in one package or individual farm or production centre visits such as Burren Smokehouse, in Co Clare, which comes with its own restaurant attached. Food tours also include tours of craft brewers and distillers, with the opportunity for a few snifters on site and then bring home a few more bottles for the evening.
Not all farmers’ markets are equal but you are guaranteed the makings of decent meal from each and everyone, even if you have to do much of the hard yards yourself, either in your rented kitchen later that evening or at an al fresco picnic.
But hit up some of the behemoths of the Irish market scene, such as Mahon Point Farmer’s Market, Skibbereen Farmers’ Market, both in Cork, or the most beautiful market in the country, Limerick’s Milk Market, and you can not only eat a choice of breakfasts, brunches or lunches on the hoof from various hot food stalls but come away with a smorgasbord of goodies to keep you sated for a further week on the road, so do, if possible, find space for a cool box or bag. Top tip: do just that, enjoy a course or two in a restaurant, and finish back in your digs with some of your farmers’ market treats and good bottle to keep the overall costs down.
There are Irish food festivals the length and breadth of the island and one thing they all have in common is pretty much all of the established players are nothing short of fantastic. With programmes invariably packed full of food-themed entertainment for all the family, there is food aplenty for mind, body and soul.
You can have a great day out, stimulating the mind and stuffing the belly and heading home at the end of the day with a bag full of treats to nibble in the evening, or sometimes even with your entire dinner. There are too many to mention but this writer has been taking his whole family down to Dingle each autumn for the Dingle Food Festival for almost a decade and even though young children have grown into recalcitrant teens, no one spurns this particular annual odyssey, relishing the opportunity to put on bib and tucker in one of the most stunning spots in the world, not just Ireland.
Indeed, you could build a whole short break around one of the bigger festivals, booking early to get best value accommodation and a front row seat at daily events.
Cork is a ‘food festival’ and, unquestionably — and this is no mere parochial waffling —the finest food producing county in Ireland, and the English Market is the envy of the island. Probably the best county in the country in which to plump for a full-blown food tourism holiday.
The English Market, including On the Pig’s Back, The Real Olive Co, O’Mahony’s Butchers, My Goodness Foods, The Chocolate Shop, Bubble Bros, Tom Durcan’s, Kay O’Connell’s Fishmonger, Hederman’s Smokery Stall. Elsewhere in the city and county: Iago’s cheesemongers; Manning’s Emporium; Urru Culinary Store; Organico; Fields of Skibbereen; Farmgate Country Store, Midleton.
Rising Sons; West Cork Brewing Co; 9 White Deer; Black’s of Kinsale; Kinsale Mead Co; West Cork Distillers; Bradley’s Off Licence & Food Emporium; L’Atitude 51 Wine Bar & Cave; MacCurtain Wine Cellar; Matson’s.
fEAST Cork Midleton; Taste of West Cork, Skibbereen; Kinsale Gourmet Festival; Cork on a Fork.
The Cork Cheeseboard; if Cork were the last place on earth where you could still get cheese, you’d die happy for the Irish farmhouse cheese was born in Cork and the entire county collection makes up pretty much the finest in the country when all served up together, including Milleens, Durrus, Gubbeen, Coolea, Ardsallagh, Carrigaline Farmhouse Cheese, Hegarty’s, Macroom Buffalo Cheese, Lost Valley Dairy, and Bó Rua.
The Little Cheese Shop, Dingle; Milltown Organic Food Store; Bacús Bakery.
West Kerry Brewery/Beoir Chorcha Dhuibhne, Ballyferriter; Dingle Distillery.
Dingle Food Festival STAR FOOD PICKS: Annascaul Black Pudding, Murphy’s Ice Cream.
Limerick Milk Market.
Treaty Brewing.
Pigtown Limerick.
Curraghchase Free Range Pork.
Ardkeen Quality Food Store, Waterford City; Seagull Bakery, Tramore and Waterford; Mezze, Tramore.
Blackwater Distillery; Waterford Distillery; Dennison’s Farm & Artisan Produce (cider and apple juice, small vineyard, fresh produce); Dungarvan Brewing Co; Legacy Cider.
West Waterford Food Festival; Harvest Food Festival.
Knockalara Cheese.
The Cheese Press, Ennistymon; Burren Smokehouse, Lisdoonvarna.
Western Herd Brewing Co.
The Burren Food Festival.
St Tola Goat’s Cheese; Burren Smoked Salmon, Burren Free Range Pork.
Country Choice, Nenagh, Co Tipperary; Dooks, Fethard.
Canvas Brewery Ireland.
Clonmel Applefest.
The Apple Farm (Fresh apples and other fruits, juices, ciders, preserves etc).