Ballymaloe still has recipe for success fifty years later

When Myrtle Allen opened a restaurant in her dining room, the self-taught chef would cook for guests on her Aga range. Today, 50 years on, the Ballymaloe brand is world-renowned.

IT is 50 years since this newspaper ran a classified advertisement of simple, unadorned text: ‘Dine in a Historic Country House. Open Tuesday to Saturday. Booking essential. Phone Cloyne 16.’ It had been placed by a farmer’s wife, recently turned 40, wondering how she would occupy herself when her six children were reared. She wanted to contribute to the upkeep of their rambling old home.

That woman was Myrtle Allen, of Ballymaloe House, and that discreet little ad was the opening line of her astonishing ‘second act’. Her apparently homespun philosophy — a chef should lay aside ego in service of the finest local, seasonal produce, allowing the food on the plate to take all the plaudits — was so out of step with the restaurant world as to appear simplistic, even naive. Today, that ethos is the cornerstone of a great, global food movement, as Myrtle, the revered matriarch of Ballymaloe, celebrates her 90th birthday this month.