The Menu: Ballydehob's Chestnut is ethereal West Cork cuisine
Ballydehob's Restaurant Chestnut: a cracker
When The Menu fancies spending a little time in heaven, a longtime favourite is Restaurant Chestnut, in Ballydehob, where chef-proprietor, Rob Krawczyk, and his partner/co-proprietor, Elaine Fleming (front of house), create one of the more ethereal explorations of hyper-locavore West Cork produce with textures and flavours that dance across the tongue like a chorus line of angels — in other words, an exquisite and sublime blend of the salaciously sacred.
However, in these trying times, full-blown Michelin dining can be greatly taxing so The Menu is delighted to hear Rob and Elaine have created Upstairs at Chestnut, a beautiful, casual and family-friendly table service dining space, with a menu of small plates, nibbles and snacks, dishes ranging in very wallet-friendly prices from €6 to €20, wonderful wines by the glass, and top tunes by the earful.
The Menu is a long-time fan of American-born chef Caitlin Ruth who is now a fully transplanted West Cork woman and who first earned national attention cooking, first in the late, lamented Deasy’s, in Ring, outside Clonakilty, and for the last few years, in her fabulous food truck which pops up all over West Cork, including annual and unmissable stints in The Menu’s most favourite pub, Levi’s, of Ballydehob.
Her first book, Funky, is another from the wonderful Blasta Books stable and is a fine introduction to Ruth’s capacity to generate entirely unique and quite delicious flavour profiles to all manner of finest, local, seasonal foodstuffs. Funky performs the nifty trick of guiding the reader through the creation of an easily achievable larder of pickles to have on standby to perk up all manner of other dishes.
Pickles — both vinegar and fermented — are divided into sections — Easy Veg Pickles, Soy Pickles, Classics, Condiments, Wild Cards, Drinks, Fruit — and a how-to guide kicks off with utterly simple ‘Ten-Minute Pickle Projects’ and though there are barely 30 recipes in the entire book, they roam near and far and will provide you with the wherewithal to invest new zest in everything from the simplest sandwich to slow cooked stews and all points in between. Soy pickled egg yolks, anyone? Yes, indeed, says The Menu!
The Menu is all about the hard graft when it comes to food but he imagines Phil Wheal will take a slightly more considered tack in his Grafting Workshop (Feb 25) at The Organic Centre, in Co Leitrim, where you will learn to propagate your own fruit trees, greatly reducing the costs of creating an orchard, with hands-on experience of grafting and budding apple, pear, plum and cherry trees, learning about rootstocks, and, at the end of the day, taking home your own grafted trees.
One of the prerequisites for owning a hospitality business is to be possessed of a most beautiful and glorious strain of madness that allows a body to keep staggering onwards in the face of myriad impossible challenges, both daily and more long term, never more so than in the current climate, which is why The Menu has no doubt there will be more than a few expressions of interest being sought by Cork County Council to take over the stunningly located and much-storied café space at Camden Fort Meagher, in Crosshaven.
- Anyone questioning their own sanity while simultaneously firing up the culinary dream machine can find further info at corkcoco.ie/en/public-notices/expressions-of-interest-for-the-operation-of-the-cafe-at-camden-fort-meagher
Yes, The Menu is at it again, writing about yet another small Irish beekeeping producer in the hope of encouraging readers to seek out their own local beekeepers for the very finest Irish honey — itself, some of the very finest honey in the world — comes from a whole patchwork of beekeepers working the length and breadth of the country.
The Menu always has at least six or seven jars in his larder and, as chance would have it, recently broached a jar of 100% Raw Irish Honey from Ballinora Bees that was akin to uncorking a draught of pure summer on a decidedly dark and miserable winter’s day, a gentle caramel sweetness sporting floral notes of summer blossom with the merest wisp of clove.
What’s more, the entirely family-run business practice true sustainability in their commitment to sourcing organic ingredients for the rest of their range of bee-related products, including very handsome beeswax candles.
