County Cork is for food lovers
Take a food tour for a wee stroll, a little history, and lots of blarney
There’s nothing better than a walking tour to immerse yourself into a new place and you’re in good company with Fabulous Food Trails. It’s a great way to meet the people who are fuelling Cork’s vibrant food scene and taste their wares. Ireland’s second-largest city is known as the food capital of Ireland, in large part because this area provides an incredible array of artisanal produce beyond butter and beer. So, if you want to get a real taste of Ireland, spend a few days in welcoming West Cork …
I met Sara Fitzgerald, one of Fab’s Food Trails guides at Cork’s huge English Market, known as one of the best food markets in Europe. Everyone here must have kissed the Blarney Stone and received the gift of gab: traders are chatting up a storm and offering their wares and at 9 a.m. I down the freshest raw oyster from Pat O’Connell.
“Fish is the original fast food and most all of our fish on the west coast is sustainable,” said O’Connel, as we eyed an ugly monkfish on ice at O’Connell Fish Merchants. “Queen Elizabeth came here, right after the royal wedding of William and Kate, and I was supposed to be diplomatic. She asked about the monkfish and I said, ‘That, Your Majesty, is what we call in Cork a mother-inlaw fish,’ and she had a good laugh.”
The English Market has seen some changes since 1788, even since O’Connell arrived in 1963. Fitzgerald has noticed more local purveyors and fishmongers and less butchers. But Tom Durcan is busy — his specialty is spiced beef. “It’s the Irish version of pastrami and we sell it by the ton,” he said. “We corn beef, add 13 spices and a few mysteries and place in barrels for a year.”
Upstairs at Farmgate Café the locals are ordering bap, a breakfast sandwich with fillings sourced from downstairs.
One word describes chicken croquettes and slow-roast pork belly at Spitjack Rotisserie: unctuous. Along with a state-of-the-art rotisserie in this beautifully restored building is an original spitjack, circa 1680. “The spitjack kitchen dates to the Middle Ages, when young boys nicknamed Jack turned meats on an open fire,” said co-owner Richard Gavin.
Family run for more than 30 years, lunch at the Crawford Gallery café has become a Cork institution. We tucked into black pudding with caramelized
apple and devilled kidneys on sourdough canapés and I needed a meat-break. The Rocket Man Food Co. slogan is “quick, not fast food.”
“We wanted to make good food accessible, so we collect all our grains and vegetables directly from farmers or they deliver, but it’s a labour of love on both sides,” said Rocket Mum Simone (rocket man is her son Jack). She offered a bag of Joe’s Farm Crisps.
“Joe grows heritage potatoes and his wife Sandy seals the bags with her curling iron,” said Simone, laughing. My falafels arrived. “The yogurt is from Ned and we make our flatbreads here, but we do like
a good plate of Irish food like cabbage and bacon.”
The Butter Museum, housed in the old Cork Butter Market, traces the industry’s history and is well worth visiting.
Half an hour drive from Cork is Midleton and the Jameson Whiskey Distillery, where the “Jameson Experience” tour takes you back 150
years and ends with none other than a glass of Jameson. No worries about having another tipple: The Jameson Bus Service operates twice daily from Cork.
And I’m that age when happiness is not having to leave your lodgings for dinner. The River Lee Hotel’s Weir Room in Cork City Centre is just the ticket. Thinking about the Queen and Pat O’ConnelI, I had monkfish, transformed on my plate from ugly to gorgeous. Most everything here is sourced locally; I started with “Taste of Cork”, a selection of local cheeses and meats and ended with Irish Coffee.
Next day we checked into the luxurious Castlemartyr Hotel Resort. Give yourself plenty of time for afternoon tea, stroll the grounds and you’re in a scene from Downton Abbey.
The writer was a guest of Tourism Ireland, which neither reviewed nor approved this article before publication.