Autumn's Fabulous Food Festivals
Tuesday 23 September 2014
This is my favourite time of year. The weather is still mellow and we have a great series of food festivals around the country up to the end of October. In fact, you could roll along gently for the next few weeks visiting different parts of the country each weekend, be it along the newly declared Wild Atlantic Way, via the Gourmet Capital of Ireland Kinsale, Fungi the dolphin in Dingle, the City of the Tribes, or bask in the heritage of the former medieval capital of Ireland - Kilkenny. On your travels, you will meet new and long-standing food producers and just generally encounter people with a common interest in food, wine and conviviality. I can promise you that with some mouth-watering morsels, a glass or three of wine and a good bit of crack, you will go home revitalized.
The incredible 10th Kinsale Arts Festival is currently running until September 28, incorporating Food & Words, in both a humorous and more serious light, including a discussion, Banter with Sully - of Cully & Sully - and Kieran Murphy of Murphy's Ice Cream. The Domestic Godless trio of artists, also appearing at Kinsale Arts Week, operate with an irreverent disregard for current fashions and culinary trends. So think of Sea Urchin Pot Noodle, Foot & Mouth Terrine at their Canaliculus Purgamentorum installation at O'Herlihy's Townhouse until Wednesday. See kinsaleartsfestival.com
The Galway Oyster Festival will be celebrating its 60th birthday next weekend from September 25-28 and the festival hub this year will be located near the Spanish Arch at the heart of Galway city. The Galway Oyster Festival was started in September 1954 by Brian Collins, who was the then Manager of the Great Southern Hotel on Eyre Square (now Hotel Meyrick), with an attendance of only 34 guests feasting on dozens of oysters.
Since then, the festival has welcomed over half a million visitors, who have consumed more than 3m oysters, washed down with Champagne and stout whilst listening to some of the best musicians in Ireland. It has played host to over 300 international contenders vying to take honours in the World Oyster Opening Championship. Throughout the three-day annual festival, a host of great events will take place including a seafood trail in the city's restaurants and 'oyster hot spots' in local bars. The National Oyster Opening Championships take place on Friday night, before the Oyster Olympics on Saturday. The 'food village' will gather at the Festival Marquee with an intimate selection of Galway restaurants serving locally sourced ingredients and seafood. Revellers can enjoy the Masquerade Mardi Gras, which kicks off at 8pm on Saturday night and on Sunday, Feile Na Mara, for all the family, will be happening in the Festival Village. See galwayoysterfestival.com
Also taking place next weekend is the 3rd Macroom Food Festival, which takes place over three days. It kicks off on Friday evening with an official opening and 'An Artisan Affair' at the Riverside Park Hotel. On Saturday there will be daytime and evening Taste Trails around the town as well as cookery demos. The young folk are well catered for here too with a fancy dress at the GAA clubhouse, followed by a puppet show at the Briery Gap and a schools cook-off on the Square on Sunday at 3.30pm. On Sunday, if last year is anything to go by, their Monster Outdoor Market on the Square will be 'savage'. See macroomfestival.com
Having been voted the No.1 Foodiest Town in Ireland earlier this year, Dingle will showcase its many culinary delights at the hugely popular Dingle Peninsula Food Festival, October 3-5, leaving visitors in no doubt as to why the town won this much coveted title. This year's festival will kick off with the first ever Dingle Culinary Pentathlon, which will see professional culinary schools from all over the country test their athletic and cookery skills to the limit. To win this cook-off, students will have to race through the town, picking up a 'blind' basket of ingredients en route, that they will then use to create a two-course lunch in under an hour, on which the results will then be judged. To celebrate the festival's 8th anniversary, the annual Taste Trail will now take in 80 establishments around the town; Derry Clarke, who has created the ultimate Dingle Pie, will be raising funds for charity at Liam O'Neill's art gallery, while chilled Cromane oysters will be served at Lord Baker's, Dingle's oldest pub.
Free demos and workshops include a mix of local and national chefs such as Martin Bealin of Dingle's Global Village restaurant, which won Best Emerging Irish Cuisine at the RAI awards and Neven Maguire, voted the Best Chef in Ireland, who will make his first visit to the festival this autumn. There will also be street buskers, food-art installations, and a large craft beer and cider event at An Canteen restaurant. The weekend will also be choc-a-bloc with fun, free activities for children; including falconry, puppet shows, honey and chocolate-making demos, culinary tales in the park, and pizza making on the Big Blue Bus. A huge artisan food and wine market runs throughout the town, which also adds greatly to the festival atmosphere and fun, as well as useful information and lovely goodies to buy and take home.
The Festival also plays host to the final judging and presentation of the 7th annual Blas Na hEireann Awards, the ultimate accolade for Irish producers. With increased entry levels again this year, there will be much celebrating by the producers who win gold, silver and bronze medals in over 80 food and drink categories. The winners of the awards will be announced on the Saturday of the festival.See dinglefood.com
Kinsale Gourmet Festival is always a wow, run by the Kinsale Good Food Circle, and it takes place the following weekend from October 10-12. It has been running for an incredible 38 years and people meet up with many old friends at each event. The official opening and Champagne Reception this year is followed by A Taste of West Cork Dining Experience, which includes a five-course menu in member restaurants around the town. Saturday is always a fantastic day with the Mad Hatter's Taste of Kinsale kicking off at 11.30 am with a sparkling reception, followed by an Alice in Wonderland-themed foodie walking tour of four tasting venues, where the restaurants set up the most amazing food and wine stations. You have to learn to pace yourself for this event. Over the years, it is always easy to pick out the first-timers who overindulge at the first venue and fall well before the final fence! The hats worn by the crowd are almost as amazing as the food - it's just a fantastic fun day.
The grand finale of the festival is the Fruits de Mer luncheon on Sunday, where the Good Food Circle restaurateurs and chefs present a stunning four-course lunch with lobster, oysters, crabs and prawns in abundance. See kinsalerestaurants.com
That leads us on to the October bank holiday weekend, when the Savour Kilkenny Festival of Food will be kicking off on October 24 and running until October 27. There is an enormous programme of events lined up here for all ages from the Food Market on the Saturday and Sunday, featuring the best of local, regional and national food producers, to the Easy Food baking competition where you can enter your cakes, cupcakes, breads and pastries to be judged by Dee Laffan and Gina Miltiadou of Easy Food, plus chef Edward Hayden and Rosanne Hewitt-Cromwell author of Like Mam Used To Bake. In association with Special Olympics Leinster, there will be cookery demos by chefs from top cookery schools, including Rory O'Connell from Ballymaloe, Kevin Dundon of Dunbrody, and the No Salt Chef, Brian McDermott, from Donegal. John The Restaurant Healy will be master of ceremonies for a fun cook-off between three of Ireland's food critics. The Chef's Table will be back, where chefs like Cormac Rowe and Ken Harker of Mount Juliet, plus Stephen Gibson of Dublin's popular Pichet restaurant will share recipes and tricks of the trade.
Festival nights can be taken up with gourmet diners including a Black & White Masquerade Dinner at the Michelin-starred Lady Helen Restaurant at Mount Juliet on Thursday, October 23, where diners will enjoy a 10-course tasting menu with a twist. Guests are asked to wear black and white and a colourful mask. Tickets cost €75, excluding wine. On Friday, October 24, at Anocht@Kilkenny Design Centre, they have a six-course seafood tasting menu prepared by Chef Paul Cullen and his team. Pascal Rossignol of Le Caveau has chosen the wines, which he will introduce on the night. Tickets cost €55, excluding wine.
Nearby at the City Bar & Grill at the Kilkenny Hibernian Hotel, they will be paying tribute to the cow for giving us cheese, milk, ice-cream, yoghurt, roast beef, fillet steak, burgers and more, with a There's Something About Dairy, which is three-course 'udderly' fabulous menu at €29.95, excluding wine.
Also on Friday, October 24, is a Tudor Evening at the Rivercourt Hotel. Actors in period costume will regale guests with tales of medieval Kilkenny, as they enjoy a five-course menu at €59, which includes wine and a pre-dinner mead reception.
The frolics continue over the weekend with various events from a Spud & Hurl race, to Go Bonkers with Conkers, a Long Table Artisan Dinner in Bennettsbridge and a Wine Goose Chase. See savourkilkenny.com
Sunday Independent
This is my favourite time of year. The weather is still mellow and we have a great series of food festivals around the country up to the end of October. In fact, you could roll along gently for the next few weeks visiting different parts of the country each weekend, be it along the newly declared Wild Atlantic Way, via the Gourmet Capital of Ireland Kinsale, Fungi the dolphin in Dingle, the City of the Tribes, or bask in the heritage of the former medieval capital of Ireland - Kilkenny. On your travels, you will meet new and long-standing food producers and just generally encounter people with a common interest in food, wine and conviviality. I can promise you that with some mouth-watering morsels, a glass or three of wine and a good bit of crack, you will go home revitalized.
The incredible 10th Kinsale Arts Festival is currently running until September 28, incorporating Food & Words, in both a humorous and more serious light, including a discussion, Banter with Sully - of Cully & Sully - and Kieran Murphy of Murphy's Ice Cream. The Domestic Godless trio of artists, also appearing at Kinsale Arts Week, operate with an irreverent disregard for current fashions and culinary trends. So think of Sea Urchin Pot Noodle, Foot & Mouth Terrine at their Canaliculus Purgamentorum installation at O'Herlihy's Townhouse until Wednesday. See kinsaleartsfestival.com
The Galway Oyster Festival will be celebrating its 60th birthday next weekend from September 25-28 and the festival hub this year will be located near the Spanish Arch at the heart of Galway city. The Galway Oyster Festival was started in September 1954 by Brian Collins, who was the then Manager of the Great Southern Hotel on Eyre Square (now Hotel Meyrick), with an attendance of only 34 guests feasting on dozens of oysters.
Since then, the festival has welcomed over half a million visitors, who have consumed more than 3m oysters, washed down with Champagne and stout whilst listening to some of the best musicians in Ireland. It has played host to over 300 international contenders vying to take honours in the World Oyster Opening Championship. Throughout the three-day annual festival, a host of great events will take place including a seafood trail in the city's restaurants and 'oyster hot spots' in local bars. The National Oyster Opening Championships take place on Friday night, before the Oyster Olympics on Saturday. The 'food village' will gather at the Festival Marquee with an intimate selection of Galway restaurants serving locally sourced ingredients and seafood. Revellers can enjoy the Masquerade Mardi Gras, which kicks off at 8pm on Saturday night and on Sunday, Feile Na Mara, for all the family, will be happening in the Festival Village. See galwayoysterfestival.com
Also taking place next weekend is the 3rd Macroom Food Festival, which takes place over three days. It kicks off on Friday evening with an official opening and 'An Artisan Affair' at the Riverside Park Hotel. On Saturday there will be daytime and evening Taste Trails around the town as well as cookery demos. The young folk are well catered for here too with a fancy dress at the GAA clubhouse, followed by a puppet show at the Briery Gap and a schools cook-off on the Square on Sunday at 3.30pm. On Sunday, if last year is anything to go by, their Monster Outdoor Market on the Square will be 'savage'. See macroomfestival.com
Having been voted the No.1 Foodiest Town in Ireland earlier this year, Dingle will showcase its many culinary delights at the hugely popular Dingle Peninsula Food Festival, October 3-5, leaving visitors in no doubt as to why the town won this much coveted title. This year's festival will kick off with the first ever Dingle Culinary Pentathlon, which will see professional culinary schools from all over the country test their athletic and cookery skills to the limit. To win this cook-off, students will have to race through the town, picking up a 'blind' basket of ingredients en route, that they will then use to create a two-course lunch in under an hour, on which the results will then be judged. To celebrate the festival's 8th anniversary, the annual Taste Trail will now take in 80 establishments around the town; Derry Clarke, who has created the ultimate Dingle Pie, will be raising funds for charity at Liam O'Neill's art gallery, while chilled Cromane oysters will be served at Lord Baker's, Dingle's oldest pub.
Free demos and workshops include a mix of local and national chefs such as Martin Bealin of Dingle's Global Village restaurant, which won Best Emerging Irish Cuisine at the RAI awards and Neven Maguire, voted the Best Chef in Ireland, who will make his first visit to the festival this autumn. There will also be street buskers, food-art installations, and a large craft beer and cider event at An Canteen restaurant. The weekend will also be choc-a-bloc with fun, free activities for children; including falconry, puppet shows, honey and chocolate-making demos, culinary tales in the park, and pizza making on the Big Blue Bus. A huge artisan food and wine market runs throughout the town, which also adds greatly to the festival atmosphere and fun, as well as useful information and lovely goodies to buy and take home.
The Festival also plays host to the final judging and presentation of the 7th annual Blas Na hEireann Awards, the ultimate accolade for Irish producers. With increased entry levels again this year, there will be much celebrating by the producers who win gold, silver and bronze medals in over 80 food and drink categories. The winners of the awards will be announced on the Saturday of the festival.See dinglefood.com
Kinsale Gourmet Festival is always a wow, run by the Kinsale Good Food Circle, and it takes place the following weekend from October 10-12. It has been running for an incredible 38 years and people meet up with many old friends at each event. The official opening and Champagne Reception this year is followed by A Taste of West Cork Dining Experience, which includes a five-course menu in member restaurants around the town. Saturday is always a fantastic day with the Mad Hatter's Taste of Kinsale kicking off at 11.30 am with a sparkling reception, followed by an Alice in Wonderland-themed foodie walking tour of four tasting venues, where the restaurants set up the most amazing food and wine stations. You have to learn to pace yourself for this event. Over the years, it is always easy to pick out the first-timers who overindulge at the first venue and fall well before the final fence! The hats worn by the crowd are almost as amazing as the food - it's just a fantastic fun day.
The grand finale of the festival is the Fruits de Mer luncheon on Sunday, where the Good Food Circle restaurateurs and chefs present a stunning four-course lunch with lobster, oysters, crabs and prawns in abundance. See kinsalerestaurants.com
That leads us on to the October bank holiday weekend, when the Savour Kilkenny Festival of Food will be kicking off on October 24 and running until October 27. There is an enormous programme of events lined up here for all ages from the Food Market on the Saturday and Sunday, featuring the best of local, regional and national food producers, to the Easy Food baking competition where you can enter your cakes, cupcakes, breads and pastries to be judged by Dee Laffan and Gina Miltiadou of Easy Food, plus chef Edward Hayden and Rosanne Hewitt-Cromwell author of Like Mam Used To Bake. In association with Special Olympics Leinster, there will be cookery demos by chefs from top cookery schools, including Rory O'Connell from Ballymaloe, Kevin Dundon of Dunbrody, and the No Salt Chef, Brian McDermott, from Donegal. John The Restaurant Healy will be master of ceremonies for a fun cook-off between three of Ireland's food critics. The Chef's Table will be back, where chefs like Cormac Rowe and Ken Harker of Mount Juliet, plus Stephen Gibson of Dublin's popular Pichet restaurant will share recipes and tricks of the trade.
Festival nights can be taken up with gourmet diners including a Black & White Masquerade Dinner at the Michelin-starred Lady Helen Restaurant at Mount Juliet on Thursday, October 23, where diners will enjoy a 10-course tasting menu with a twist. Guests are asked to wear black and white and a colourful mask. Tickets cost €75, excluding wine. On Friday, October 24, at Anocht@Kilkenny Design Centre, they have a six-course seafood tasting menu prepared by Chef Paul Cullen and his team. Pascal Rossignol of Le Caveau has chosen the wines, which he will introduce on the night. Tickets cost €55, excluding wine.
Nearby at the City Bar & Grill at the Kilkenny Hibernian Hotel, they will be paying tribute to the cow for giving us cheese, milk, ice-cream, yoghurt, roast beef, fillet steak, burgers and more, with a There's Something About Dairy, which is three-course 'udderly' fabulous menu at €29.95, excluding wine.
Also on Friday, October 24, is a Tudor Evening at the Rivercourt Hotel. Actors in period costume will regale guests with tales of medieval Kilkenny, as they enjoy a five-course menu at €59, which includes wine and a pre-dinner mead reception.
The frolics continue over the weekend with various events from a Spud & Hurl race, to Go Bonkers with Conkers, a Long Table Artisan Dinner in Bennettsbridge and a Wine Goose Chase. See savourkilkenny.com
Sunday Independent
- See more at: http://www.independent.ie/life/food-drink/feast-of-ohso-fabulous-food-festivals-30602988.html#sthash.QdifM3EZ.dpuf