Restaurant Chestnut

Robbie Krawczyk’s cooking is contemplative. His food articulates the zen of Japanese cuisine, which means it is not simply physical, but also metaphysical. Where most chefs want to grab you by the lapels with their cooking, Mr Krawczyk’s food whispers, quietly. Other chefs add ingredients until they reach abundance, but Krawczyk offers subtraction, distilling the focus on his West Cork ingredients: a little piece of octopus with cauliflower; wild deer with salsify; chocolate with beetroot. His maturity as a chef shines through in the fact that he hides the techniques that create his artful dishes and, in his first year running little Chestnut, with his wife Elaine, his food has moved further and further from culinary artifice, and closer to culinary essence. This is cooking of rare purity.