“Good, honest, kind cooks”. That's how Carmel Somers describes the style of Colin White and Stephen Markwick, the two chefs whose work and tuition taught her the most as she was learning her craft in kitchens in the U.K. Neither Markwick nor White are household names, but they are both cult figures, and that is exactly what Ms Somers has achieved since opening Good Things Café in West Cork in 2003.
Her cult status is built on her cooking, a very expressionist but highly logical style of food, and also her skills as a teacher and a writer - her book, “Eat Good Things Everyday” is one of the most singular cookery cooks of the last decade. But there is more to Somers' cooking than just an authoritative manner with food. As the name of her restaurant discloses, with its direct allusion to the late Jane Grigson, Somers actually works a culture of cooking that embraces the influences of Grigson and Elizabeth David, George Perry-Smith and Patience Grey, as well as Markwick and White. This depth gives great nobility to her food, yet she expresses the cooking as a modern idiom, and that is the secret of her success: good, honest, kind things to be enjoyed.