Cork on a Fork Festival: Celebrating the best of Cork's food scene
Action from last year's 'Taste of Princes Street' event at Cork on a Fork festival. Pic: Joleen Cronin
"Cork on a Fork is an amazing festival of food with a brilliant lineup. It couldn’t happen anywhere other than Cork,” declares food writer John McKenna who, with his wife and colleague, Sally McKenna, is involved in several of the events happening as part of this festival which runs from
August 16-20.
It’s the second year of the city-wide food celebration which includes a feast on the street, food trails, tastings and tours, cooking demos and workshops, in what McKenna calls “a fantastic cornucopia of events”.
For Sally McKenna, it is “a celebration of primal foods, which are the real strength of Cork: oysters and offal and really fresh fish and proper bread — real bread — milk, butter, cheese”.
She sees the city’s location and history as playing a strong role. “Cork is a maritime city, looking outwards towards the sea and back along the rivers. It brings people in and welcomes them. It is a working port with a strong historical food trade and that still has an effect on what we eat, what we drink and how we welcome people.”
The McKennas based themselves and their family in West Cork 30 years ago. While she had an Irish grandfather, Sally McKenna was born in Africa and grew up in Fiji; and former barrister John McKenna is from Belfast: “I didn’t belong to any tribe in Northern Ireland and never felt part of the legal tribe in Dublin. We arrived in Cork and we knew ‘this is it’.”
For Sally McKenna, a huge part of the attraction towards Cork was the fact that she was brought up on an island. “I’m very orientated towards the sea, and need to see that every morning.”
West Cork was also fertile ground for food lovers. The couple, who first visited Cork in the late 1980s as part of the research for their iconic (published in 1989), found plenty kindred spirits. In their award-winning guidebooks, they have celebrated that blend of pure Cork folk plus interesting outsiders that galvanises so much of the food scene.
“You find that mixture everywhere in the county,” says John McKenna. “Part of the [West Cork] attraction was Jeffa and Durrus, the Fergusons [of Gubbeen] and Milleens out on the Beara.”
During the 1980s, this triumvirate of Irish pioneer cheeses was literally the thin end of the wedge — the beginning of a culture that inspired so many of the food stories that have evolved since then.
John McKenna believes part of the reason Cork is such a good place for food is that people in the industry are all “standing on the shoulders of giants. Myrtle [Allen] didn’t open a place in Dublin and Declan Ryan, when he came back from France, didn’t go to Dublin, he set up Arbutus Lodge. They won Michelin stars for Cork in the early 1970s.”
Ryan’s Montenotte establishment was awarded a Michelin star in 1974, the first — of many — in the county since.
The following year, Allen became the first Irish woman to hold a Michelin star for her Ballymaloe House restaurant. It meant Cork also developed its own audience of discerning food lovers, people who would spend their money in places like Arbutus, Ballymaloe and Clifford’s, the late Michael Clifford’s acclaimed Mardyke restaurant.
In 2023, Michelin still smiles on the county with Dede in Baltimore holding two stars and Kinsale’s Bastion, Chestnut in Ballydehob, Cork City’s Ichigo Ichie and Terre in Castlemartyr having one apiece. That’s five starred restaurants for Cork, out of a total of 21 across the island of Ireland.
It’s not just the Michelin-starred diners that get to enjoy Cork food though. “The markets have played a key role in keeping it real,” says Sally McKenna. “In the rest of the world, food is so packaged.”
Markets like those held in Mahon Point, Midleton, Bantry and Skibbereen, along with what she calls “the mecca” — the English Market — “keep us in touch with the roots of our food, with new food and ancient foods … offering basic primal foods that we can all have access to at a normal price and we should celebrate this.”
“Cork is so good all the way through,” says John McKenna. “From a good cup of coffee at Wunderkaffee in Farran Village to the astonishing talent of Ahmet Dede working in a seaside village in West Cork, it’s all good.”
Cork on a Fork takes a similarly democratic and inclusive view of programming: there are lots of free events so everyone can get involved.
Restaurants are offering special menus, community gardens throughout the city will be open on August 19 and Emmet Place is the location for the festival marquee and market. Full programme at corkonaforkfest.ie.
Three years ago, Princes Street became the poster child for outdoor dining in the city centre and it’s gone from strength to strength since.
This year’s opening night event takes full advantage of the colourful parasols lining the pedestrianised area: seven participating restaurants, including Nash 19, Quinlans and Oak Fired Pizza, are seating their diners outside at 6pm for a variety of specially curated menus at various price points — book your favourite in advance — with live music playing on the night and a communal, party atmosphere.
“A shared evening with all the people on Princes Street — this is a really good example of a sense of community in action,” says John McKenna.
Aishling Moore is a whiz with fish of all kinds and this feast of shellfish in her Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant, Goldie, promises to be a real treat.
The event is taking place in the upstairs dining room, tickets are €90 and all profits from the night go to the Ballycotton RNLI. Email info@goldie.ie for bookings.
Food history — the way in which it has shaped culture, politics and even the landscape — is key to understanding human development.
Food and culinary historian Regina Sexton, Joycean scholar Dr Flicka Small and historian Dr Tom Spalding team up for this engaging look at Cork food through the lenses of history, literature and heritage.
The Farmgate Restaurant in the English Market is the ideal spot for Kate Ryan’s fascinating talk and tasting of the black puddings of Cork, paired with beer from Original 7 brewery on North Mall.
John McKenna brings Takashi Miyazaki from Ichigo Ichie, Goldie’s Aishling Moore and Claire Condon from Good Day Deli together for a discussion on their sustainability philosophies, and how they can be implemented in a restaurant kitchen.
Bringing new flavours to Cork, this Cork Migrant Centre-organised demo focuses on pupusas. A traditional dish from El Salvador, these are griddled flatbreads made with masa harina corn flour or rice flour and stuffed with beans and cheese or meat.
This hands-on event sees Izzeddeen Alkarajeh of Izz Café hosting an experience that has participants roasting green coffee beans to making three distinct types of coffee, from espresso-based drinks to cardamom-infused Turkish or Palestinian style and spiced Arabian coffee. The perfect event for caffeine lovers.
