A fine dining voyage along Ireland's wild west coast
Ballynahinch Castle, Co Galway. Enjoy Michelin-starred chef Danni Barry’s glorious dinners in the hotel’s Owenmore Restaurant.
Certain dreams are worth waiting for and the decades of waiting before Camper Van Claude finally came into my life several years ago only served to whet my appetites, both literal and metaphorical. Someday, Claude and I will do the Wild Atlantic Way but I’ll need time, two months at least, so consider this a West-bound recce to prepare for the real deal sometime in the future.
The great thing about a camper is pulling up outside a hospitality establishment, filling the belly and then stepping outside the front door and straight into bed — or you can choose instead to sleep in a real bed if the mood takes you and it always does when I’m anywhere near Ballynahinch Castle.
Connemara is sublimely beautiful in summer, but I love it even more in late autumn or even winter, when a denuded landscape exposes raw elemental power and rugged appeal. It also adds to the pleasure of driving up to Ballynahinch Castle on a dark, cold night, in keen anticipation of a roaring fire and pint of plain before one of erstwhile Michelin-starred chef Danni Barry’s glorious dinners in the hotel’s Owenmore Restaurant and then waking in a cosy bed the next day, to breakfast looking out at the beautiful riverside setting.
It’s a comparatively short drive to Galway town but along the way, we stop at Pota Café for a delicious lunch of local, seasonal organic fare, all served up by fluent Irish speakers, doubling up the ‘Blás’ factor.
There are more than a few good pubs in Galway, but Naughton’s (Tigh Neachtain) has become something of a ritual for me over the years, for a slow pint and prolonged meander through the paper in one of its myriad nooks and crannies. Dining options are excellent in the City of the Tribes. Daróg Wine Bar not only has an excellent selection of bottles but chef Stiofán Feeney knocks out some very tasty small plates.
Michelin-starred Aniar is a uniquely Irish restaurant, to the fore in its locavore deep dive into Irish produce and the tasting menu is special treat. Then there are the homely comforts of Jess and Dave Murphy’s Kai Restaurant, where New Zealand-born Jess, by now a fully-fledged local, applies her magpie mind to superb produce, serving up uniquely Irish dishes with cosmopolitan twist — and I will always order whatever whole fish is on the menu that night.
The next day, we are over the border to Co Clare, and in particular, to the truly magical Burren. Washing down a gorgeous lobster dinner with a fine Riesling on the terrace outside Linnane’s Lobster Bar, in New Quay, looking across to Co Galway as the sun sets … could it get any better? Well, yes — when I pour a post-prandial snifter of fine Dingle Single Malt and sip it while sitting on the quay wall before retiring for the night. Next morning, after a dip in the sea, breakfast is Flaggy Shore oysters, their HQ being right next door to Linnane’s.
After a morning rambling through the Burren, lunch is a delicious bowl of cauliflower soup and homemade brown bread from the Roadside Tavern, in Lisdoonvarna, followed by a tour of Birgitta Curtin’s Burren Smokehouse, purchasing her delicious smoked mackerel for my travelling larder.
Come nightfall, I’m heading for one of my favourite hotels in Ireland, Gregan’s Castle, in Ballyvaughan. There is an impossibly cosy little bar, complete with real fire, and the standard of the food is inevitably superb, the Gregan’s Castle kitchen having been a jumping off point for some of Ireland’s finest chefs, including Michelin two-starred Mickael Viljanen, of Chapter One, and Robbie MacCauley, of Michelin-starred Homestead Cottage, just down the road in Doolin.
As we’re in the neighbourhood, it would be rude not to call into the aforementioned Homestead Cottage. Actually, don’t mind ‘rude’, it would be sheer madness to miss it, for it is a unique and delightful experience, where Robbie and his wife, Sophie, serve up an exquisite tasting menu entirely rooted in the produce of the locality, much of it grown or even hunted by Robbie himself.
Off to Co Limerick and we head to the Saturday morning Limerick Milk Market, just about the best farmer’s market in the country, superb stalls and produce in a magnificent covered market in the heart of Limerick city.
Next port of call is Rigney’s Farm Bed & Breakfast, a wonderful establishment and our base for a night or two. Breakfast will always include Caroline Rigney’s excellent and award-winning granola as well as superb bacon, sausages and puddings from her own free-range pigs, and its location allows us to roam the hinterland for evening meals. Adare 1826 is where Wade Murphy applies classical cooking technique to great Irish produce for hearty and delicious fare, including great steaks and whole fish on the bone.
Then on the second night, it’s time to put on the glad rags and head to Adare Manor for one of chef Mike Tweedie’s divine tasting menus in the Michelin-starred Oak Room restaurant in the world-renowned five-star hotel.
Mike’s cooking gets better and better each year, the more he comes to know the finest produce of the locality and further afield around Ireland.
We’re not quite done with Limerick, and Claude will have to wait on his own out in the car park because it would be a sin to pass up a bed in The Mustard Seed, a country house masterclass in Irish hospitality delivered by owner John Edward Joyce.
There are few experiences finer than a winter’s evening pint in the village of Ballingarry, before walking back up to the Mustard Seed for some of chef Angel Pirev’s sumptuous and homely cooking, then rolling into a comfy bed surrounded by the wonderfully eclectic collection of art and antiques.
Next up is Kerry and I’m heading straight for the Dingle peninsula, which I have loved since childhood. You’re spoilt for choice when it comes to pubs and my on personal favourites include Kennedy’s, Curran’s and Dick Mack’s, and dining is equally well served in the West Kerry seaport town.
These days, the local fleet may be smaller, but it still lands some cracking fish and seafood, plentiful on menus around the town. Solas does a spectacular job of bestowing an Iberian-themed culinary sensibility on superb local Hibernian produce and the bijou little restaurant is always buzzing.
There are some great old-school restaurants in the town for those who like their fish served in the traditional manner including Doyle’s and The Half Door but my Newcomer of the Year Restaurant Award for 2025 went to 505 Restaurant Dingle, owned and operated by chef Damien Ring. A truly exceptional restaurant, I somehow wangled a table during the height of the Dingle Food Festival and was not disappointed.
Everything was exquisite, from stunning bread through considered starters, to magnificent main courses including monkfish, mushroom, Madeira, blackberry, hazelnut with a sauce for the ages, produced over weeks to mine the depths of flavour, and deeply delicious Dexter beef short rib.
Then it’s on to Kenmare and, after parking up, walking through the lovely little town to the wonderfully revamped Park Hotel, including new owners Bryan and Tara Meehan’s superb collection of contemporary and modern art. In the revamped Landline restaurant, head chef James O’Sullivan has utterly revitalised the hotel’s restaurant kitchen. A hidden gem who emerged from the old kitchen team, his cooking is unshowy yet precise and technically assured and while it certainly ticks the luxury box it is also very damned tasty.
After stopping for a pepperoni pizza in Tango, in Killarney, who are currently knocking out some of the finest pizzas in Ireland, we’re on the home straight, back in Cork, still Ireland’s premier food county when it comes to produce and not far off it either on the hospitality front.
Best of all, it hosts West Cork, my spiritual home and where our journey ends. We begin with a night of dining in Dunmore House Hotel, where local produce, including much from their own organic gardens, is served up as quite delicious food, augmented by a cracking and genuinely innovative wine list. That view out over the bay doesn’t hurt either.
One of the greatest marriages in Irish food is that of chef Ahmet Dede and West Cork, a unique culinary sensibility encountering some of the finest produce in the world, in a truly special place. Dede at the Custom House began with promise but in recent years has risen to another level entirely. Now a Michelin two-starred chef, Ahmet keeps delving deeper and deeper into his Turkish culinary heritage, to meld it to the extraordinary produce of West Cork for some of the finest food currently being cooked in Ireland.
You need to spend two nights in Baltimore, however, to also take in his and business partner Maria Archer’s more casual dining offshoot, Baba De, which is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner — I’d highly recommend making a full day of it and having all three!
Ballydehob is, of course, the centre of the known universe and probably a few unknown universes as well—24 hours in the ‘Hob can’t get much better when it starts with a pint of plain in the finest pub in the world, Levi’s. Then it’s a matter of heading out the side door and crossing the road to Restaurant Chestnut for dinner.
There is a preternatural calm about Rob Krawczyk and Elaine Fleming’s Michelin-starred restaurant, a former pub wearing the serenity of a Buddhist temple, yet the welcome is gently fulsome and ever convivial. On the table, Rob’s hyper-locavore delivery of some of the finest produce from the land and sea is achieved with sublime and exquisite precision, including stunning mackerel, crab and langoustines, Skeaghanore Duck from a mile out the road, and a whole range of in-house ferments, pickles and charcuterie, often made with his father, Frank, Ireland’s original charcutier.
The next morning, it’s time for a quick spin out the Schull Road to take a refreshing dip at Dereenatra Pier, before heading back into Budd’s, in Ballydehob for a wonderful brunch. Then, it’s time to head back home to Cork City.
