Aoibheann McNamara

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Until Aoibheann McNamara came along, the person who put the greatest style into using the endearment “darling” was the great Bunny Wailer. “I'll play your fav'rit' song, daarrlingg, so we can rock it all night long, daaarrrlinggg, yeah, yeah”, he sang on the classic “Rock 'n' Groove”. But Ms McNamara can out do Bunny when it coms to turning “darling” into the word that speaks straight, directly, unmistakably, just and only to you. “Good evening, darling” she says as you walk into the clositers of Nimmo's, and she has you straight away. No contest. You just turned into a little puppy.

Where did she come from, this Aoibheann Mcnamara, and how does she make restaurants that are unlike anyone else's? The background seems straightforward enough – an arts degree, then art history and Italian archeology as a post-grad, than arts administration in Galway. But maybe that's it right there: McNamara doesn't run restaurants: she runs art spaces that also happen to serve food, and that food comes out of somewhere different also, for she says she learnt to cook at a Buddhist centre. In Cavan. As you do.

She is a sport of nature, and a fascination, her own life and work an art form in itself. We are lucky that this artist has tied her métier to the world of food, for she shows how that world can be transformed by an artistic vision. Pure Galway, of course.

Ard Bia,Spanish Arch,Long Walk,Galway,County Galway
091 561 114
www.ardbia.com