Taste of heaven in Kinsale’s gourmet wonderland

TOURISTS looked bewildered and day trippers stopped to stare as Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse trooped through Kinsale yesterday, followed by up to 200 revellers eating and drinking their way though the town.

The Mad Hatter’s Taste of Kinsale is one of the highlights of the town’s calendar and has been taking place every October for the past 33 years.

Visitors came from America, Australia and all around Ireland, some obviously having put a lot of work into their millinery masterpieces.

The morning event, which is part of the Kinsale Gourmet Festival, kicked off with a sparkling wine reception and then MC Derek Davis had the group practically salivating as he described the culinary wonders they were about to experience, before paying tribute to one of Kinsale’s greatest fans, Keith Floyd, who died last month.

And than at last it came: “Alice, Dormouse, March Hare, Mad Hatter – time to eat” and we all divided up into our individual groups.

The skies were bright blue and the sun shone as the revellers wove their way around the picturesque town, sampling food from the town’s Good Food Circle.

Clocks had been taken apart and re-distributed around top hats, while others had donned foamy traffic cones and a group of older women had practically transplanted cottage gardens onto their crowns.

As part of the Mad Hatter grouping, our first port of call was the Trident Hotel, before about 45 minutes later hearing the Mad Hatter ring a bell and sound a whistle, meaning it was time to move to another venue. And so it was back out on the street again.

All day, the food was fit for the gods: grilled oysters and parmesan, king prawns deep fried in potato, the most delicate slithers of carpaccio, squid that tasted like it had been brought straight from net to grill and more crab claws than you could nod your hat at.

Restaurant D’Antibes, Blu at The Blue Haven, The Captain’s Table at Actons Hotel, Crackpots, Jim Edwards, Max’s Wine Bar, Man Friday, Pier One at The Trident Hotel, Toddies, White Lady and Fishy Fishy all sent an array of chefs to prepare dishes at the various pit-stops.

Saturday was Emer Sexton’s second Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and she reckons she’s definitely coming again next year. Emer, from Co Limerick, attended with husband Colin Hayes.

“We’re having a brilliant day. It’s really lively: the food is delicious and there’s just a great atmosphere here. There’s something very special about this event. All the people involved are lovely, all the chefs and organisers. It’s a food orgy really,” she laughed.

For Emer and many others, the highlight of their day was the daytime disco at the White Lady.

The White Lady was the second stop on our tour and while the restaurant was lined with smoked salmon, terrines, peppered steak, cheeses, lobster and scallops, there was also a disco ball, a thumping bass and a lights machine at the end of the room.

Nobody cared that it was just 1pm as they swilled back wine and bopped to Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees and Abba. The DJ laughed in between tunes that as the day progressed, each group would get livelier.

From the White Lady, it was back to Actons for a seafood banquet, a clam chowder to die for and some more indulgence on the wine front.

From there we went on to another culinary overdose at Hamlet’s where the Autumn sun shone down on the beaming crowds in the beer garden as the evening drew in.

But the party didn’t end there.

Sharon Crosbie was back at Actons and the disco hadn’t stopped yet at the White Lady.

It was a day that separated the lightweights from the diehards and by 6pm that evening, I certainly knew which camp I was in – the former.