Sally's blog

We don’t know anyone who chines and grills a better lamb chop than Kevin O’Sullivan, the chef in the Samphire Restaurant, at the Garryvoe Hotel, facing Ballycotton Bay in east County Cork.

Grilling is an art form that eludes many Irish chefs. When you order grilled meats, you are looking to enjoy the char of the grill, and the tenderness of the marinading. The chops should be precisely trimmed, so that you can pick up the meat like a lollipop, and get all the lush goodness of that umami hit.

Matt Strefford cooks for the guests in Moy House (see photo and review on blog), so the only way to be absolutely certain of getting a table is to book a room, though if guests are eating elsewhere then non-residents can be accommodated.
There are many other distinguished destinations in Ireland where, in order to ensure that you get to stay when you want to, you need to be booked well in advance. Planning that 2018 trip? The time to make reservations is: Now!

Book Review: Alice Waters, Coming To My Senses (Hardie Grant Books)

Book review: The Gannet's Gastronomic Miscellany by Killian Fox (Mitchell Beazley) by Caroline Hennessy   Put together by a group of London-based writers, photographers and filmmakers, The Gannet is an online magazine that believes, like Claudia Roden, that the best of stories are to be found in the kitchen.

The articles are a delicious meander through relaxed chats, interviewees' picks of local coffee spots, restaurants and shops, collections of loved food objects and favourite cookbooks.

Some food shops create a universe unto themselves. In Ennistymon, in County Clare, Sinead Ni Ghairbhith’s The Cheese Press is a self-contained world.
You might walk in here to buy some cheese, or to get a cup of the fine, locally roasted Anam coffee, and find that you are still there an hour later, maybe just chatting away to all and sundry, or maybe you decided to head down the stairs and found yourself joining a yoga class.
Cheese. Yoga. Coffee. The universe. It’s all here.

Certain events signal a new epoch in food: the opening of Ballymaloe; the invention of Milleens Cheese; the first Eurotoques dinner in Trinity College; Food On The Edge.

Evan Doyle's Zero Km, 1 dinner, 1 night, 100 people, at the Brook Lodge Inn, belongs in this exalted list of culinary game changers. 

Part 1. Cork to Crookhaven

What the South West coast lacks in predictable weather and good marina facilities it makes up for with clean, safe and uncluttered harbours and boltholes. For the independent sailor these uncluttered waters offer  good scenic sailing with plenty of charming hostelries along the way.

Ballyfin is the kind of hotel you desperately want to hate. It's owned by a billionaire American; it has a room called The Gold Room; the staff form a line to meet you at the front steps when you arrive, and Condé Nast Traveller voted it the Best Hotel IN THE WORLD - it just has to be all in the most appallingly bad taste, doesn't it? But it isn't. In fact, it's the most exquisite and perfect hotel I've ever stayed in. If I could afford it, I'd stay there at least once a month.

The location couldn't be more Galway. The Residence has snuggly fitted itself right within the Latin Quarter. It's a subtle hideaway which begins with a skinny entry into a long modernist lobby.

Would you like a side of Guns 'N' Roses, The Eagles, Green Day and The Doors as you step inside a Galway cottage predestined to be a punk of a joint?

In the brand new Burgatory, in Galway’s Spanish Arch, it’s almost as if a shack from the Midwestern United States flew across the Atlantic and rooted itself in the proud West coast city of Ireland.

Previously, Burgatory was a truck called Harlowe, which toured around festivals. But now owners Enda Hoolmaa and Tara Haugh have decided to root themselves in the heart of Galway's colourful Quay Lane.