At Harry’s, success is grown in the garden
Pub is part of Ireland’s growing food tourism trail
Five minutes f rom Derry and across the border into Inishowen, the northernmost point in Ireland, is Harry’s Restaurant, a hub for the stunning peninsula’s fast-developing food tourism trail.
Harry’s motto of “made in Inishowen” could not be truer, as they grow their own vegetables, and 100 per cent of their meat, fish and game comes directly from sources within a 30-kilometre radius.
“We just picked things one by one that we thought we could differentiate ourselves on,” explained owner Donal Doherty, 37, who took over his family’s struggling Bridgend restaurant in 2003, turning it into a multiple award winner within a few years.
Doherty’s first bold move was to take advantage of the restaurant’s unused meat-hanging room and start hanging beef traditionally. “No one else was doing it,” Doherty explained, which — along with “flavour-led” and “locally sourced direct buying” — starts to describe his business model.
The drive to spearhead the Inishowen culinary way led him to the nearby fishing port in picturesque Greencastle, where he buys fish directly ($108,000 of it last year), fileting in house and putting the results on a customer’s plate “as soon as possible,” which means that same day — “something that would be impossible in Dublin.” It led him to farmers of Dexter beef cattle, a small native Irish breed that is well suited to year-round outdoor grazing and recognized for its superior taste. And it led him to employ one of Ireland’s “top four” vegetable growers and use a 250-year-old walled gar- den to grow more than 200 varieties of herbs, vegetables and salads.
More recently, he started a weekly market for local producers, growers and food artisans, and he built an in-house bakery with a known Irish baker at the helm, part of his commitment to having top chefs on board. “I want to see the chefs, baker and gardener expressing themselves. I want them to have that freedom,” he said while unloading the crates of fresh fish called plaice he’d just bought.
Doherty’s innovation has not gone unnoticed by the Irish government, which chose him as one of 14 Irish Food Champions from more than 160 applicants across the country. Looking to food tourism as a way of bolstering the struggling economy, the government sent the group to Ontario’s Prince Edward County Taste Trail in September to learn about food tourism best practices.
Doherty brought home a vision to develop even further what he was already doing through his direct buying,
“I want to see the chefs, baker and gardener express themselves.”
DONAL DOHERTY
weekly market and regular talks on food startups: namely, encouraging the local food economy. The creation of a food trail will take things to another level.
Seven food-related enterprises in the area have signed on for the trail, which Doherty says will give tourists a diverse range of food experiences “that go beyond what each of us already has to offer.” Brian McDermott’s Community Chef Cookery School in Greencastle is a prime example. Instead of simply taking a class, visitors will go down to the pier to see the boats come in and meet the fishermen from whom they would buy the fish directly. That fresh catch then takes centre stage during the day’s cooking class.
Dexter beef farmers Rosemary and Louise Marshall are in on the trail, too, and will bring tourists into the world of the miniature Irish cattle. The sisters run a bed and breakfast, Amara Farmhouse, on a spectacular piece of land near the 4,000-year-old ringfort Grianán of Aileach, the beautiful herd munching happily beside their house. Guests would mingle with the cattle in this idyllic setting, seeing how they are raised and cared for. And Doherty himself will take guests to his historic walled garden, where they can talk to the gardener and see him in action, all followed by lunch at Harry’s.
Doherty expects the trail to come to life within the year. In the meantime, he’s thinking about what’s next for Harry’s. The plan is nothing less than to reinvent the rural Irish pub, turning part of his cozy bar into a shop that includes market produce plus healthy take-away meals.
“The rural Irish pub is in demise all over the country, and just like any business, if you sit and do nothing, nothing will happen. But best meat going, best fish going, best veg going right here in the pub — that would put life back into the bar,” he said, the vision and ambition apparent in his eyes as he looked at the area he plans to renovate.
Grand visions don’t detract from the quality of what goes onto his plates, however — the proof being in the pudding or, in this case, the fish. After a day of visiting Doherty’s local suppliers and his garden, a dinner of the delightful light plaice caught hours earlier — accompanied by peeled parsnip crisps, spinach and fennel salad, and creamed leek in a pistachio crust — convinces more than words could. For more information, visit harrys.ie and twitter.com/HarrysDonal.