Myrtle Allen: A pioneer who made her home into Michelin star restaurant

A pioneer who made her home into Michelin star restaurant Food or cooking in Ireland didn’t begin with Myrtle Allen but when it comes to evaluating the very best of modern Irish cuisine, it is near impossible not to establish some link back to the pioneering spirit of this East Cork farmer’s wife who transformed her home into a Michelin star restaurant.

Her culinary philosophy, based on the primacy of using only the very best of local, seasonal, Irish produce, grown and harvested or even foraged in a sustainable way, is now so accepted by the global mainstream, that it can be hard to convey the revolutionary impact of her seemingly simple approach to cooking when she first opened a restaurant at Ballymaloe, the very first in the world to apply these principles to fine dining.

Myrtle Hill, an architect’s daughter, was born in Cork City in 1924, marrying a progressive fruit and vegetable farmer, Ivan Allen, in 1943.