Wicklow food expert shares passion for local delicacies and her ideal Garden County feast
County is tops for taste, says Enniskerry gourmet
Wicklow People
Santina Kennedy wants to talk about one thing and one thing only. Food. She speaks of food experiences the way that meteorologists talk about weather events. She makes heroes of food producers. She loves good food that comes with a good story. Santina really should have been born in France.
The French have a way of promoting their local ingredients, each region trumpeting its particular product or insisting that visitors taste the parish specialty. Go to Britanny for the artichokes, or to Burgundy for the mustard, or to Ile de Ré for the oysters, and so on. Food features hugely on the French road signs. The French have a restaurant culture where we Irish have a pub culture.
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Kinsale: For great natural produce, accommodation and fun things to do
Every season, Kinsale seems to add new food outlets and innovative new services to its deserved global reputation for culinary and entertainment excellence. Here is a personal selection of some of the many fine food outlets keeping Kinsale's worldwide fame alive. Where to eat? The best for Michelin — Kinsale is home to a Michelin one-star and a Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant. One-star Bastion continues to impress with classic cuisine and precise plating that celebrates Irish produce and seasonality. Emile Moisy, Grace Coyle, Caoimhe Heffernan and Isobel Bergin in the Grind School Coffee Shop, Kinsale Community School after receiving their leaving certificate results. Picture: Dan Linehan The vibrations emanating from the chatter about the food, wine and service at St Francis Provisions is rightly deserved, and you will want to order everything on the menu. Prebooking is essential, though bookending the service might get you a walk-in spot. Best for Fine Dining — Rare 1784 has all the critics talking for its incredible cuisine, great wine and cocktail service and unique dining room. Executive head chef, Meeran Manzoor, has cemented his position as an exciting and innovative chef to watch. His food at Rare is a heady blend of classic French technique, Irish produce, and flavours of his Chennai homeland that outrageously flirt with all your senses. Fishy Fishy restaurant in Kinsale. Best for Views —Man Friday's is the kind of place loved by locals but sometimes overlooked by visitors who may not venture outside of the main hub of the town. What awaits is an elegant dining room serving food of the highest order with beautiful views over Kinsale Bay. Plates are classic and beautifully presented, and the interior has been given a spruce for an extra sprinkle of classiness. Best for Breakfast — Smart people book ahead for breakfast at O'Herlihy's Café (or OHK Café) where everything is stellar. Seasonal and delicious ingredients adorn plates built for refuelling and pleasure. Be sure to sneak in a drink — especially the mocktails and always leave room for cake. Shirley Walsh of Shirley's by Fort Charles, Kinsale. Best for Coffee — Wild & Tame has a buzzy café vibe serving Stone Valley Roasters Coffee and a curated mix of lifestyle goodies. Keep an eye out on their Insta Stories for the occasional pop-up event. Best for Brunch — Nine Market Street has a tight menu of well-versed dishes spanning breakfast, brunch and lunch. Sesame-crusted fish burger, Macroom wagyu beef and loaded flatbreads are all waiting for you. Best for Lunch — Fishy Fishy is almost a by-word for Kinsale food by now. Martin Shanahan's famous fish restaurant is much loved for a reason. Super fresh fish and seafood, whip-smart service, and great wines on Cork's riviera. Best for Bakes — Seeds Bakery French patisserie and rustic breads have proved a winning combo. Mornings are buzzy serving up a storm for a baying crowd looking for luscious laminations and super sourdough. Follow the happily be-crumbed to this place where bread is heaven. Best for Provenance — When it comes to farm to fork, Finn's Farmcuts take it literally. Grass-fed beef and lamb are raised on Finns family farm in Mitchelstown and everything else sourced from other like-minded farmers, aged to perfection, then cooked in their woodfired oven nicknamed Bertha. Upstairs at The Bulman serves up fresh oysters to handmade burgers, locally landed fish, and a fine selection of Irish cheese. Eating here is always a pleasure, and the bright upstairs location with large windows overlooking beautiful Summercove below add a special something to the experience. Kinsale living Best for Pizza — Bruno's Italian Eatery is where all the Kinsale foodies go when they're let loose from their kitchens. Simple food done well, it's a crowd-pleasing array of wood fired pizzas, seasonal pasta plates, and comforting risotto — something on the menu for everyone and anyone. Opening times can be a little haphazard, so it's best to look at their Instagram before rocking up. Best for Small Plates — St Francis Provisions has all the goodies with exceptional wines and great aperitivos to match. The menu changes daily here depending on what shows up in season and heavily inspired by less-familiar Spanish flavours such as outrageously good slow-cooked tripe or sweet and sour bombs with fresh fish. Always order the Gildas. The Farmers Market which takes place every Wednesday in Kinsale, Co Cork. Best for Cocktails — The Supper Club cocktails are perennially good so grabbing a seat at the bar should be on your list. Kinsale Hotel and Spa, although a short spin from town, has an excellent cocktail offering including a briny spicy Blood Orange Marguerita. Best Beer Garden — Hamlets sunny courtyard beer garden with it's very swanky roll-back roof and brightly coloured walls is a total sun trap that ticks all the boxes for a great summertime session. Best for Wine — Over 200 wines, many by the glass, pouring by the best sommeliers in Kinsale makes The Black Pig Wine Bar the go-to place for anyone curious about wine. The food is always classy, too. Best for a Pint — Kinsale is strewn with atmospheric pubs, many of them with long and storied histories. The Greyhound is a perennial favourite for a well-poured creamy pint, as is The Tap Tavern which hosts music sessions every Wednesday and are not to be missed. Where to Stay The Old Bank Townhouse boasts five-star luxury in the heart of town and is the sister property to the Blue Haven Hotel, home to celebrated restaurant Rare 1784. Making the most of harbour views, the historic Acton's Hotel is a Kinsale stalwart welcoming guests for nearly eight decades. If falling asleep to the sound of tinkling ship masts is your thing, the Trident Hotel is ideal, and where great food and exceptional suites with private balconies make for a memorable escape. Perryville House, Kinsale, Co Cork. The elegant charms of Perryville House are as renowned as its famous breakfast, and a short distance from town set in 90 acres of beautiful woodland overlooking Oysterhaven Bay, Kinsale Hotel and Spa is a secluded sanctuary to rest and unwind. The Other 43 is an opulent light-filled self-catering apartment with eco-friendly credentials hovering above Kinsale harbour at Shearwater where luxury permeates from linens to finishes with a particular nod to Kinsale's own crafted traditions. The Lemon Leaf has three cosy rooms above the café which make for a perfect ending to an evening spent at their 'Lates' running summer long. The Old Presbytery is a Georgian property with five self-catering apartments in a quiet nook just seconds walk from Kinsale's restaurants and bars. Festival is 'sewing' the seeds of change From the world of high fashion publishing to the green fields of Kinsale, Ciara Hunt's career has taken her to London, Toronto, Boston and Munich. But a return to Kinsale, the favourite place of her childhood, has been the catalyst for a new chapter in an extraordinary life. Mareta Doyle and Ciara Hunt, founders of Fashion & Farming, a new festival attracting respected speakers. In May, Ciara co-founded a new festival, Fashion & Farming, with her mother, Mareta Doyle, a familiar face behind Kinsale Arts Week. The festival aimed to kick-start a conversation around where these two seemingly disparate topics converge — the soil. The festival drew in a diverse array of big-name speakers. U2's Adam Clayton, MEP Mairead McGuinness, former TD Simon Coveney, and Farming for Nature Ambassador Darina Allen, and activists from the worlds of farming and fashion, political and not, all gathered at Kinsale Community School's new theatre. But where did the idea germinate? Seven years ago, Ciara and her husband Richard, purchased a dilapidated farmhouse which came with 60 acres of land. While the house was what drew them and their three children to this pastoral scene, it was an unnatural silence in a natural place that became a revelatory and life changing moment. 'I was super excited about the house,' says Ciara. 'It's nestled among trees, deep set and cocooned. The setting is beautifully serene. I had been walking the land when I began to wonder why it was so quiet. There was no sound; the landscape was dead around us — no birds, no bees, no buzzing, nothing. I became obsessed about it; I couldn't understand why I wasn't hearing anything? 'The first thing I did was to stop all farming. I realised we had to bring fertility back into the soil because it was dead after years of intensive farming. We planted lots of grasses and clovers, thousands of trees, and restored the hedgerows by going back to the original field maps. 'By creating hedgerows, cultivating shrubs, trees, edges, margins, building ponds and restoring dry-stone walls it has brought the wildlife back. The Dawn Chorus wakes me every morning now. It's so loud, but exciting because we created that. There was nothing there and now there's so much life.' The two worlds of fashion and farming do not naturally connect in the mind, but the big picture is — clothes or food — it all starts with the soil. 'Mum brought these two worlds together, stemmed from my background in fashion and my realisation that we all buy and consume too much fashion, and my work on this land. 'The farm-to-table conversations happened, but fashion has not been discussed as broadly as it should be. It's one of the world's greatest pollutants and it really needs to be addressed, particularly fast fashion and the disposal of fashion — it's shocking what it's doing to the environment. 'It was a massive success, and we have received a fantastic response from our audience and speakers — many have said they want to come back next year.' Fashion & Farming Festival returns to Kinsale May 9-10, 2026. In the meantime, be sure to seek out Kinsale's sustainable makers and creators in both fashion and food on your next visit. Kinsale, for all-year-long fun You'll find something to entertain you in Kinsale throughout the year. Here is just a small sample of the festivals that await you in the coming months. 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Heritage Week, 16 - 24 August 2025: Long before it became world famous for food and sailing, Kinsale was an important trading and fishing port and it also held strategic military importance. Much of that built heritage is preserved in the town and Heritage Week connects people, places and history through events as diverse as historical walks, talks and tours, poetry, music, art and architecture. Joachim Beug, author, who features at Words by Water: Kinsale Literary Festival 2025. Words by Water: Kinsale Literary Festival, 2nd—5th October: A weekend devoted to celebrating good writing, the festival programme appeals to readers of all ages and interests with events showcasing literary fiction to sport, poetry to the short story and much more in between. Full programme and tickets available online. The Mad Hatter's Taste of Kinsale, 11th October (TBC): One of the most anticipated events in the Kinsale calendar! Gather in your finery and follow Alice, the Queen of Hearts, March Hare and the infamous Mad Hatter on a walking food tour with delicious fayre. Tickets sell fast, so don't be late!
Irish Independent
5 hours ago
- Irish Independent
Wicklow food expert shares passion for local delicacies and her ideal Garden County feast
County is tops for taste, says Enniskerry gourmet Wicklow People Santina Kennedy wants to talk about one thing and one thing only. Food. She speaks of food experiences the way that meteorologists talk about weather events. She makes heroes of food producers. She loves good food that comes with a good story. Santina really should have been born in France. The French have a way of promoting their local ingredients, each region trumpeting its particular product or insisting that visitors taste the parish specialty. Go to Britanny for the artichokes, or to Burgundy for the mustard, or to Ile de Ré for the oysters, and so on. Food features hugely on the French road signs. The French have a restaurant culture where we Irish have a pub culture.
