Chefs dish up best of local delights
The Transition Town Kinsale 50-mile meal award, now in its fifth year, is presented at the Kinsale Gourmet Festival to dishes prepared with ingredients produced exclusively within a 50-mile (80km) radius of the town.
“I now source all my ingredients locally and this award has really heightened awareness of that,” said Toddies@the Bulman chef, Pearse O’Sullivan, who won the most exquisite meal award. “Sourcing locally makes cooking top-quality food easier because the quality of the produce is guaranteed.”
O’Sullivan’s meal consisted of Oysterhaven oysters smoked in Irish oak served with a green bean salad topped with Stonewell cider jelly. The green beans were from Ballyregan, Kinsale, and the Stonewell Irish Craft Cider from Nohoval.
The Transition Town Kinsale special commendation went to Max’s Wine Bar and Restaurant for its resplendent array of locally-sourced dishes including a ling, crab and lobster sausage.
“Apart from things you can’t source here like wines and so on, we source everything locally,” said chef Olivier Cueva.
Amongst the chefs wearing their local produce hats was Martin Shanahan of the Fishy Fishy restaurant, who had brought local fisherman Shane Murphy along to meet the people eating his fish caught a few kilometres off the Old Head of Kinsale.
Producer Sarah Ager, another Fishy Fishy supplier, was also there with a large selection of salad leaves she grows in her organic vegetable garden in Timoleague.
“It was ridiculously difficult to choose from such high-quality entries,” said judge Giana Ferguson, the director of Gubbeen Cheese and Farmhouse Products.
“This award is terribly relevant. I predict, in five years’ time, it’ll be in every restaurant in Ireland,” she said.
The judge also praised White House chef Martin El-Sahen for his autumn game stew.
