Ballymaloe House

I loved my stay and dining experience here — simply loved it!
It is the quintessential Irish country house that is warmly welcoming after a long day of driving. You are greeted most graciously upon your arrival and made to feel right at home. The rooms are warm, homey and cozy — exactly what you desire on your journey visiting this lovely, often chilly, countryside.
And, the food? Oh my, you can’t save enough space up in your stomach to imbibe in the wonderful wine list and dine on the interesting food combinations that will leave you beyond stuffed and wishing you had a larger appetite to eat more and more. I had no problem as a vegetarian eating here at all.
Then, after you have stuffed yourself silly and can barely make it to your room, your only mission is to sleep off what you have eaten to be able to indulge in the amazing breakfast that is awaiting you the next morning.
A lovely, lovely visit!

No one who grew up in Ireland could’ve missed hearing about Ballymaloe House and Cookery School. Headed up by the most famous matriarch in Ireland, this place is probably the only royal family Cork can lay claim to ;-)
Darina Allen was the Delia Smith of Ireland, a female tv chef back when such a thing was unheard of. She heads up the Allen family of Ballymaloe restaurant fame.
I had to make a trip to see this place when I was in the area. Now obviously I couldn’t afford to eat here, my parents have, but I’m poor. So this is a review of the shop and café. They apparently have wood fired pizza but none was to be found.
The shop is traditionally kitsch with homewares and kitchen stuff. It was a bit disappointing as nothing seemed particularly unique to Ballymaloe. Just Irishisms you can get anywhere. I did pick up some Cashel Blue cheese, but again, not especially local.
The reason I had so much time to shop. We waited 40 minutes for a table for coffee. It was a disgrace and they never even apologised. We ordered some cake and it was rushed over long before the coffees arrived. And we were out of there in under 20 minutes. What a seriously shit experience for such a famous place. Never again. They also mix Barry’s Tea with Earl Grey, bloody travesty. Massively underwhelming service. No Michelin stars for you!
The grounds of Ballymaloe are beautiful though, very classic Irish fairytale.

It’s one of those places where one needs to give a thorough review…
It’s a stunning estate… stunning and a lovely sense of home and style at once. It’s also well kept, there’s no bad surprise about something broken or staff not able to help or foresee any of your needs. That’s something I was happy to see after my experience at the fancy Lyrath estate in Kilkenny that felt a bit under maintained in parts.
The rooms are cute, tasteful, homy, comfortable, nothing wrong to say about them. It’s so comfy and quiet, you sleep like a baby. There are, though, some rooms that are in another building (which was our case) and there’s no corridor linking them so be prepared to have to walk in the cold or rain to get your dinner, tea or whatever else from the main house.
The livingroom and conservatory are lovely rooms to hang around. There’s also a fantastic view of the house by night from the back of it, where you can see the whole house lit up. I’m not mad about the restaurant /​dining area which is split into several rooms (which is good to reduce the otherwise distracting noise from all the passionate conversations going on) however these rooms are a bit small and I had constantly in mind my elbows and legs not being in the waitresses’ way. I guess it was a very busy saturday night as well but I wasn’t mad about the atmosphere, and the rather too professional (maid looking) waitresses serving the dishes. Food wise, lovely, really tasty and nicely portioned. Was it worth € 70 and was it extra-​ordinary? Not for me. I know the high standard that Ballymaloe has in the culinary industry, and I have to say I enjoyed my lunch at the cookery school way more than the dinner at the restaurant, that was rather uninspired and since a lot of ingredients come from their farm or local people, even if it’s a 5 course (if you take cheese), a 55 – 60 price tag would have been more suitable as far as I’m concerned. Same for the € 10 afternoon tea for 2 with 6 thin biscuits, I couldn’t help but thinking right there I was definitely helping them maintaining the estate. I did love the food though, it’s just that the level of amazement didn’t match the pricetag. On the other hand we paid € 80 each per night for the room and that was worth it all, especially when having experienced so many overpriced and poorly maintained yet «renowned» places in the past.
There are plenty of walks to do around the house, and there’s a lovely and thorough shop full of crafts and kitchen stuff, along with Ballymaloe branded food.
Bare in mind that the cookery school is 3 miles away and the road is quite narrow so walking to it isn’t a very good idea.

Great Irish manor house with endless grounds, a cooking school and delicious meals. It wasn’t free! Room are old world and proper and priced by the person. Meals cost about the same as the rooms. Figure about $ 750 per couple a day.
This was the best food of our trip and is outstanding. The wines were delicious and fair priced as well.
Expensive and worth it.

I am a sucker for long driveways and this has one of the longest ones that I have come across, but don’t come for the driveway, the food stands up very well on it’s own. As I walked in there was a basket of fresh peas waiting on a table, just beneath the largest set of antlers that I had ever seen. I started my meal at that very moment on the peas (not the antlers). Fresh and delicious. We were seated in a small room just off the entrance. The striped wall paper reminded me of my grandmother’s house and the average age of the fellow diners was probably 70 years old — not that there is anything wrong with that. We were quickly greated by Darina Allen, the chef, author and owner of Ballymoe House. She smiled at our 3 three year old who was very happy to munch on peas and freshly baked bread. The brown bread was fantastic, light and chewy with unbelievably good butter served at exactly the right temperature. So good. We were directed to the appetizer buffet in the adjacent room. There were perhaps 20 different selections ranging from a variety of seafood salads to mini prawns, a lobster brioche type bite (my favorite), and oysters to an array of pates and other salads. Everything was very good especially the pickled beets and the pork and spinach pâté. On to a carrot and tomato soup — I thought this was a strange combination, but it worked perfectly — a strong taste of carrot gave way to a complimentary taste of tomato with each bite. The main course followed — John Dory with lobster — this too was very good, but a little too rich and the fish could have used a touch less cooking. Finally, as my wife gave up, she just could not fit any more food in, my daughter and I pressed on as the dessert tray wheeled up to us. My daughter had the chocolate cake with unsweetened whipped cream and I had the crème brûlée and fresh mint tea. A delicious end to an excellent meal.

Spectacular food every time. No greater sight then the desert trolley coming.

Not far from Cork City is a great restaurant serving produce from their own extensive gardens combined with other local ingredients. This is all served in an estate house nestled in a large, working farm.
Ballymaloe is most famous for its cooking school, owned by author and chef Darina Allen. The school is certainly the best known in Ireland and one of the most respected cooking schools in the entire world. They have a 100 acre working farm that produces an amazing range of edible items.
The guesthouse and restaurant is located a short distance by car from the cooking school. It is in an ivy covered stone estate house with an adjoining culinary supplies store (and a simple café). The dining rooms include a glassed-​in porch, a few smaller «elegant grandmother» rooms, and some outdoor tables spilling out of french doors.
The food was well crafted from local ingredients. Our cream of lettuce soup was excellent and vibrant in color. The local haddock was made into a very light version of fish n’ chips. All of the flavors were true and the culinary team clearly wants the quality ingredients to speak for themselves, not making things complicated or heavy.
It is a picturesque drive to Ballymaloe. A lunch followed up with a visit to the cooking school and a farm tour makes for a great day trip from Cork City.