'An achievement for the village': Ballycotton chef celebrates Bib Gourmand

Cush in Ballycotton is one of three Irish restaurants to be honoured with the Michelin award for the first time

Chef Dan Guerin at Cush Restaurant, which overlooks Ballycotton Lighthouse and has been awarded a prestigeous Bib Gourmand Award. Picture: Howard Crowdy

A chef from Ballycotton has described his winning of a prestigious Bib Gourmand for his east Cork restaurant as an “achievement for the village”.

Cush in Ballycotton is one of three Irish restaurants to be honoured with the award in the Michelin Guide to Great Britain and Ireland 2022 for the first time.

The Bib Gourmand is a distinction that highlights restaurants offering good food at competitive prices.

Cush, along with Everett’s in Waterford and Éan in Galway are among the 16 new Bib Gourmand restaurants for 2022.

Dan Guerin is head chef at Cush and he said the award is a "massive” achievement.

The 28-year-old said a Ballycotton restaurant winning the award was very special to him as he is from the area.

“You could go up to Cork City and do it but you’d have no real connection to it,” he told the Irish Examiner, adding that “it’s nearly an achievement for the village”.

His training has seen him work in numerous restaurants around the country, including most recently Kilkenny’s Michelin starred restaurant Champagne.

The Michelin Guide hails Cush as a “smart” and “modern” restaurant sitting in “a pretty coastal town” with a “friendly, welcoming team”.

The kitchen cooks with regional produce to produce “hearty, seasonal, modern dishes". 

Chef Dan Guerin with the staff of Cush Restaurant.

Mr Guerin started at Cush three years ago and owner Pearse Flynn has since opened a more casual eatery allowing the chef to “push on Cush a bit harder in the last 12 months”.

Covid “was a struggle” he admits, but Mr Guerin says it was great to reopen and since enjoying “a really lovely run through Christmas” things have been going from strength to strength.

In 2021, Mr Guerin received a Highly Commended award in the Young Chef of the Year category at the Food&Wine Restaurant of the Year Awards, and last summer the inspector who awarded the Bib Gourmand visited the restaurant.

The next step up from a Bib Gourmand is a Michelin star. 

However, for Mr Guerin, the goal at the moment is to keep everyone happy and to have the restaurant full at weekends.

Speaking about the new award, he said: “I think the biggest thing about the Bib Gourmand is that every year there’s 10 or 12. It’s the first year really that I’ve seen only three restaurants in Ireland and which is even more shocking only 16 restaurants in the whole of the UK [and Ireland].” 

Mr Guerin feels the inspectors must have been reducing the number of awards given out. “It’s great because it actually shines the spotlight more on us three in Ireland who are after getting it.”