Restaurant review: Sage, The Courtyard, Midleton, Co Cork

Sage is a select band of Irish restaurants determinedly questing for that elusive modern Irish cuisine in the manner prescribed by Redzepi. 

THE globally-revered Rene Redzepi, chef/proprietor of Copenhagen’s Noma, recently told Irish hospitality guru Tim Magee the best hope of unearthing what might be dubbed a modern Irish cuisine could only come from a total immersion in the produce and culinary traditions of the locality.

Nor did he simply mean dotting menus with a random few Irish products sourced from a supplier’s catalogue; Redzepi’s prescription was total immersion, to the point of obsession, in the produce, cultivated and foraged, of your immediate hinterland.