Driving out of Cork on the way to Ballymaloe, roads run alongside moss-covered stone walls and everything gets greener and greener. On the stretch of rugged beach by Ballycotton we stop and get out to look out at the lighthouse perched on its own mass of rock and breathe in gulps of sea air.
I have come for a long weekend in Ireland — and instead of Dublin or Belfast, I want to experience the southern city of Cork and the surrounding area. It’s an easy weekend trip from London — flights were a £30 return with Ryanair, and I spent more time travelling to Luton airport than I did in the air. The city itself has become a foodie destination, with new hotels and restaurants popping up to welcome tourists — and of course, the pubs are some of the best in the world.
The first stop is Ballymaloe House Hotel. 2024 marks 60 years of Ballymaloe, the Hotel opened by Ivan and Myrtle Alan in 1964 as a restaurant called The Yeats Room. The hotel has been so successful that it spawned a cookery school founded by Mrytle’s daughter-in-law Darina Allen in 1983.
As the taxi pulled up around the sweeping drive, we saw the front of the house was draped in wisteria. We had cocktails in the front sitting room — spicy margaritas and spring whiskey cocktails — all with ingredients grown on the grounds. Our room, the Ivy Suite, had its own porch with a row of pink geraniums. The room was huge, with a separate closet, and new furnishings in modern florals.
That Friday evening, we ventured into the nearest town, Ballycotton, for fresh fish and chips at The Blackbird, and to experience some live music. We drank local gin, Guinness and Murphy’s — another much lighter stout.
On Saturday morning after a delicious omelette and multiple cups of coffee at the hotel, we set off for the Ballycotton cliff walk. The skies cleared and we were bathed in sunshine the whole walk. We wound our way along the cliff tops, discovering tiny coves and caves perfect for stone skimming, and lined with wildflowers. We reached two ghost shipwrecks an hour-and-a-half in, and turned around to make it back into town for lunch.
You’re going to want to visit the cookery school just a few kilometres from Ballycotton, even if you’re not taking a cookery class (and even if you are not a big fan of cooking). The grounds themselves are a small world: there’s a mystical shell grotto intricately decorated at one end of the grounds, crowds of geese and ducks wandering around, and even a huge Saltburn-style Celtic maze that we tried to navigate multiple times, only to get very lost and then have to use pollen to mark our route because we didn’t have a pen. We grabbed crisps and olives and soaked up some unusually-hot Irish sun.
We made it back to the hotel in time for dinner, which was the highlight of our stay. I recommend making it your entire evening plan, and settling in to watch the other diners and just enjoy the slowness of the courses. We had sparkling wine to start with warm fresh bread, followed by the lightest seabass — but the real excitement came at dessert. Have you ever seen a dessert trolley before? Well, we hadn’t. It was wheeled around the restaurant, and you could pick as many different options as you wanted on one plate. There was fresh homemade honeycomb ice cream, pistachio biscotti, strawberry tarts, and a chocolate rum meringue log. We tried them all and then crawled back to the room.
After two blissful days in by the coast, the next stop was the Montenotte hotel, at the top of Cork. The Montenotte is a great option because it’s up on the hill, you can see out over the River Lee and the spires of the churches, as well as the more industrial side of the city.
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For dinner, we headed to Cask in town, lured in by the red lights inside, and the host of people laughing at tables down the alley next to it. We shared small plates of olives and fish tacos, which were both delicious, and more rounds of Aperol spritzes than I want to admit. Then, we set out in search of the best pub to wile away the night — walking past countless bars with crowds spilling onto the streets, loud renditions of ‘Wonderwall’ and perfectly-poured pints of Guinness.
We settled on Arthur Mayne’s, a quirky apothecary bar crammed full of rainbow bottles in deep blues and reds, that serves strong gin and tonics downstairs, and fantastic cocktails upstairs in a dimly-lit speakeasy — you have no idea of the time of day or night in the bar, to the point where we realised it was 2.30am and we should start walking up the hill to bed.
On the Monday we headed to one of the most extensive hotel gyms I’ve ever seen — an actual dedicated space rather than an add on — before heading off to get more of a sense of the city in daylight.
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Cork is small enough that you can walk everywhere by foot. It offers the Crawford art gallery for a dose of culture, and Cork Cathedral, whose spires you can see for miles around. We had an unfussy lunch at Umi — bowls of falafel and hummus and sweetcorn salad — all for £20 for two people, but enough food for four.
We followed this with coffee at Cork Coffee Roasters: there are a few around the city but I would recommend the one on Ballyhooly Road, where you can sit outside with a view.
For our final dinner, we ate at the Montenotte — led by South African head chef Rudi Liebenberg, formerly of Cape Town’s Mount Nelson hotel. Huge portions of salmon and roast lamb were cooked perfectly, and we drank margaritas afterwards looking over the nighttime Cork skyline.
