Kilkenny Design Centre

You source tableware from Castle Arch pottery, you source wines from the brilliant Le Caveau, you source foods from the best producers of the South-East, you put it all together and you have Anocht, Kilkenny Design's evening-time restaurant in their gracious Kilkenny headquarters. Kathleen Moran and her team perform one of the great transformative operations in Irish food, as they switch the busy, utilitarian daytime room into an intimate, draped, dinner-time, table-service restaurant that triumphs because of the team's brilliant nous and knowledge of design, colour, comfort and aesthetics. It's a room full of grace notes – candlelight, Irish linen, the glint of good glassware and flatware, the fading light through the windows as evening draws on. The cooking drives the aesthetic home: Kilmore Quay prawn and crabmeat with Highbank Orchard syrup; Milleeven-glazed pork belly with Savoy cabbage; chicken poached in buttermilk with black pudding in filo; Duncannon scallops with pork cheek; Paddy White's sirloin with duck fat chips; new season strawberries with strawberry and elderflower sorbet.
Ms Moran an her team have always developed Kilkenny design organically and patiently, slowly coalescing their ideas until they have everything right. The mixture of Anocht, their excellent daytime menus, and their lovely, bright food hall makes for a don't-miss Kilkenny destination.