The Cottage Restaurant

Sham Hanifa’s The Cottage restaurant isn’t as globally famous as London’s NOPI, but Mr Hanifa has done for Ireland what celebrity chefs Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully have achieved in London. He cooks on the culinary tightrope where you discover the synergies between Irish ingredients and Asian grace notes, so you can expect beef carpaccio Thai-style with dry roast peanuts; monkfish with turmeric coconut cream; Andarl Farm pork with cumin-spiced cabbage; Thornhill duck with miso cream; Pernod pannacotta with star anise poached pear. He makes these matches seem not just logical, but made-in-heaven, the Asian grace notes adding colour, heat and contrast to the ingredients sourced from his local suppliers and straight from his own garden. It makes for lovely eating, and superb local staff show everyone the warmest welcome. Who needs NOPI?