Claire Nash

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What is it with the cooking women of Cork? Shirley Conran's Superwoman couldn't hold a candle to the likes of Claire Nash, one of the archetypes of the Cork cooking women, even if she hails originally from Pallsgreen in County Limerick.

She was washing dishes in Ballymaloe House aged 13, and running her own café at 15. After five years working in the 'States, she opened her restaurant, Nash 19, on Princes Street in 1990. A couple of years back, unhappy about the pressures that Saturday opening was imposing on her team and their work, she actually closed the restaurant, and went with Monday-Friday opening. One can only imagine what her accountant thought of that, except one knows what her accountant would have thought: Claire would have told him what she wanted and why and, after mature reflection, he would have agreed. You don't mess with these Cork women.

The Ballymaloe origin is important. Ms Nash's ethos is just the same as the fountainhead of Cork cooking: the best is good enough, make the simple seem sublime, and you only have to do it every day. She has a magic about her work that reminds us of another mighty Munster woman, Kenmare's Maura Foley: what a good cook does is to ennoble the everyday. She could persuade you to the merits of mashed turnips or Christmas pudding, and you will feel you have had a taste of something secret, something unlocked for you alone. Away from the restaurant, she is a player in business circles, but it is in the whirlygig of brilliance that is Nash 19 that one sees her genius, the genius of the sisterhood.

Nash 19, 19 Princes Street, Cork, County Cork
021 427 0880