Restaurant review: Farmgate Lismore is one of my new favourite Irish restaurants
Farmgate Lismore is a beautiful space in a former Victorian country pub. Picture: Dan Linehan
8.5/10
One of the highlights of the annual Waterford Festival of Food sees chef Paul Flynn mine his contacts for a guest chef to deliver a very special dinner from their repertoire in Flynn’s Tannery restaurant. Flynn cut his teeth heading up Michelin-starred kitchens in England and his Irish contacts are equally elevated. Over the years those delivering that ‘Saturday night special’ include some of the most influential chefs of the last 40 years in these islands, among them Fergus Henderson, Angela Hartnett, Ross Lewis, Richard Corrigan, Mark Hix, and Rowley Leigh.
Flynn is equally deserving of a place in their company. He, wife Máire, and their Tannery restaurant have achieved iconic status in hospitality, helping to define modern Irish food, not least that nexus where traditional Irish meets the technique of classical cooking. On a Déise destination dining jolly, it is an unmissable pit stop and the Foleys and I enjoy another superb evening of finest Irish food and hospitality, but my professional focus is on the food legacy of a lesser hymned hero of Irish food.
Máróg O’Brien, an early ‘apostle’ of Myrtle Allen’s ‘locavore’ gospel of cooking premium Irish produce without undue affectation, opened Farmgate Midleton, in 1983. In 1994, with her sister Kay Harte, she opened the Farmgate Café in the English Market, playing a crucial role in redefining the market’s then floundering food identity.
Máróg eventually passed over the English Market operation entirely to Harte (now run superbly by Kay’s daughter Rebecca) and concentrated on Farmgate Midleton, bringing in daughter Sally as manager. In 2023, catastrophic flooding closed Farmgate Midleton but, in 2024, Sally grafted her mother’s legacy on to a new venture in west Waterford — Farmgate Lismore.
Farmgate Lismore is a beautiful space in a former Victorian country pub that previously housed the late, lamented Chop House, where Michelin-starred Rob Krawczyk (Restaurant Chestnut) first made waves. Actually, make that a series of beautiful spaces in an exquisitely curated refurbishment of a too-long-idle premises.
An intimate snug and charming long wooden bar, with stools for diners, sidesteps into a wide corridor doubling up as wine cellar, with stool seating along one side. This leads into the dining room proper which, in turn, opens out into the garden. The overall impact is sublime and we are spoilt for seating choice. Instinctive bar-hounds, we’d normally plump for a seat out front but one look at the beautiful courtyard and there is no place in the world we’d rather be.
The Foleys are feisty men, eminently capable of putting away dinner in the middle of the day, but this more delicate flower settles for two starters.
Burrata and heirloom tomato salad is soon a glorious mess as I mix the cheese’s lush cream into a slick of good basil pesto, mopping up with sourdough toast, tart sweet tomato with every mouthful.
Calamari are amongst those non-negotiables I struggle not to order if on a menu despite varying experiences over the years. My leap of faith is rewarded with rings lightly blessed with tempura batter, perfectly cooked to toothsome tenderness. Tomato chilli sauce is shy of chilli kick and basil pesto is overpowering as a partner so I stick to a squeeze of lemon and mop up the sauces with good, crunchy ciabatta garlic bread. Side salad follows the classic Farmgate template: green leaves, near seasonal peak, almost sweet, lightly dressed, pickled cucumber adds crunch and acidity; divinely simple, simply divine.
Captain Foley’s prawn pil pil is perfectly pleasant though tiger prawns lack depth of flavour and garlic and chilli are coyly underplayed. His main course is Una O’Dwyer’s homemade sausages which marry well with rich, sweet red onion marmalade but the crowning achievement is a bed of butter-rich spring onion champ, so insanely good it is the literal definition of oral comfort.
It also underpins Gambler Foley’s pan-seared chicken, tender meat, lush with flavoursome juices, a mighty lemon, white wine and chive cream sauce adding further heft. Side dishes include delicious chunks of parsley buttered carrot and gorgeous verdant green broccoli with toasted almonds.
Service is spot on and a snappy Italian Pecorino (La Piuma, Terre di chieti, Abruzzo, 2023) washes all down splendidly, so the hardest thing we’ve ever done is not cancel our evening booking in Waterford city, longing to instead linger on in this little slice of Eden for the rest of our lives.
To ease the pain, we depart in stages, heading into the bar for coffee and to settle up. Utterly stuffed, we demur when offered dessert before professional obligation sees me order Tunisian orange polenta cake with Cointreau crème fraîche. I sample a morsel, intending to bag the remainder. It is extraordinarily good, one of the best iterations I have tasted, browned, near crisp exterior, the interior, moist, granular and sumptuous. We finish it in seconds.
For the rest of the weekend, we plot and plan our imminent return to Lismore for an overnighter and a chance to savour the already renowned nighttime buzz and evening menu of Farmgate Lismore. It is now one of our new most favourite Irish restaurants, an old school classic reborn anew in wonderful west Waterford.
- farmgate.ie
- Dinner for three, €210
