Restaurant review: St Francis Provisions, Kinsale
Chef Darren Kennedy with Barbara Nealon for a take away at St Francis Provisions on Short Quay in Kinsale, Co Cork. Picture Dan Linehan
- St Francis Provisions
- Short Quay, Sleveen, Kinsale, Co. Cork
- Tel. 083 063 6879
- facebook.com/StFrancisProvisionsKinsale
On a cold, crisp winter eve, I join the tidy little socially-distanced queue outside St Francis Provisions, in Kinsale. A cheery American woman in our number nods up to two jets, high in the stratosphere, silently moving across the clear sky, puffy contrails, snow-white against the crystalline blue.
“Don’t you wonder where they’re going,” she says, with a wistful smile, “and wish you were going there too?” We all smile politely, say nothing, but necks craning skyward, follow the jets’ progress to ‘somewhere else’ for quite some time.
Provisions all collected and further supplemented by excellent Irish craft beers and a few very good wines purchased from 1601 Off-Licence around the corner, I’m soon hightailing it home on the class of night only begging to be spent at welcoming table and by cosy stove.
When I last reviewed SFP, it was in its daytime incarnation as an excellent brunching outpost, though their night time operation was beginning to ramp up, and on the strength of a fine showing, I’d vowed to return — yet another covid-delayed promise. Tonight’s feast is entirely from the nocturnal end of the menu.
Relishing our Craft Cocktails strawberry daiquiris, delivered to our door in the post, as an aperitif, we start with breads and charcuterie. A delicious house organic sourdough with a tang reminiscent of the sourdoughs of San Francisco, the place for which SFP is named, is really good bread. A bubbly sourdough focaccia is even better again, just about the best I’ve ever tasted — as pillowy and fluffed up as those contrail clouds but infinitely better for mind, body and soul: gorgeous oily, crisp crust, studded with juicy roasted cherry tomatoes. I could build an entire meal around the focaccia alone.
Charcuterie is splendidly sourced from Olivier Beaujouan’s On The Wild Side, in Castlegregory. It's a succulent, nutty and sublimely toothsome hazelnut salami, that La Daughter justifiably cites as ‘just how salami should be’, and a rich, peppery coppa that we anoint with some of our own olive oil for extra punch, the meat’s creamy fat dissolving in the mouth. House pickles and a kombucha wholegrain mustard add delightful sour crunch.
Next up is a ‘side dish’ that is possibly meant to accompany mains though we treat it as a separate course: roasted crunchy carrots, sweet, earthy beets and blanched curly kale are all daubed in a quite excellent ajo blanco (Spanish emulsion of bread, ground almonds, olive oil), punch-drunk with garlic, and a roasted flaked almond gremolata is sprinkled on top — ‘side’ is rather a pejorative descriptor for what we deem a splendid standalone course.
We flit between three main courses, sharing dishes. Crown Prince pumpkins are sliced and roasted to a sweet, creamy fudge and hearty fagioli bean and mushroom stew is drizzled with herbaceous salsa verde.
Meaty roast monkfish is brightened with the anise of fennel and sweetness of leek, with chewy fresh mussels as maritime grace notes.
Pre-seared bavette is finished in a hot oven, not my preferred option for cooking this fine Caherbeg beef but it works out surprisingly well, carmelised exterior sliced open to reveal scarlet pink flesh dripping in savoury juices, all served with a rich and comforting parsnip puree and umami-laden onion gravy.
Smoked Ballymakenny heritage potatoes are served Hasselback-style and roasted in oil and we employ a cracking salsa matcha (made with toasted seeds instead of more usual peanuts, and chili) with reckless abandon; dabbed on fish, smeared on meat, a spoonful stirred through beans. Desert is just the right amount, a neat little square of exquisite pumpkin cake, served with rum butterscotch.
In the aftermath, we loll around like blissed-out piggies, comatose by the trough, struggling to recall a lockdown finish-at-home meal that might top this one.
SFP may now be open again for in-house dining but continues to offer their take-home provisions bags, an absolute boon to anybody not quite ready to venture out into the ‘real’ world or perhaps still cocooning for medical reasons.
On this showing, my strong desire to return to SFP for the nocturnal offering is now bordering on manic compulsion but if someone were to serve up this kind of fare to our table without me having to really lift a finger, I’m not sure we’d ever leave home again.
