What's Hot In Kinsale

Believe it or not, but the great and the good who were present in Kinsale for the April Speciality Food Forum were happy to queue up for 45 minutes just to get a chance to eat in Fishy Fishy Café, Martin and Marie Shanahan's brilliant fish restaurant and shop at the Guardwell.

Click here to see the Fishy Fishy entry in the Bridgestone100 Best Restaurants in Ireland 2002.

Also at The Guardwell is the other great Kinsale jewel, Maeve Coakley's Blindgate House. This is style lover's heaven, a beautiful house with superb, light breakfasts.

Click here to see the entry for Blindgate in the Bridgestone 100 Best places to Stay in Ireland 2002.

Our latest discovery in Kinsale is Pearse and Mary O'Sullivan's sparky Toddie's Restaurant, just on the Cork road heading out of town. Mr O'Sullivan is a fine cook, and the rooms are very stylish and blessed with a brilliant collection of modern paintings by Irish artists. Good bouillabaisse shows the chef's imaginative signature with a clever reworking of the original dish, a very fine leek and gruyere and chervil tart had light as a pillow pastry, good Angus beef with a Perigordine sauce was gutsy and real. With Mary's born-to-the-manner service, Toddie's has a bright future ahead of it, and is already a don't miss destination in Kinsale.

See this issue's Menu of the Month.