It may be more than half a century ago and Declan Ryan may have entered his 82nd year now, but his recall is forensically accurate as he remembers that day in March 1974 when the Arbutus Lodge Hotel, the restaurant that he ran with his wife, Patsy, won Ireland’s first Michelin star.
“It made the front page of the London Times, but it only got a mention on page 8 of the Examiner – a paragraph down the story; Ted Crosbie [publisher] used to get a bit embarrassed about that because I used to slag him about it,” Mr Ryan said.
He had entered the culinary business when his parents, Sean and Mary, opened the Arbutus Lodge in Montenotte on Cork City’s northside in 1961 after they sold up their successful guest house, Ardnalee at Crosshaven in Cork Harbour.
“A food guide came out and there were only two guest houses mentioned in all of Ireland, Kylemore Abbey and Ardnalee. And a friend of my father’s, who was managing the tourist office in Cork, told him they were doing a fantastic job in Crosshaven, but they needed to be in the city.”
Stoneybatter: Suspect has no known links to victims, who remain in hospital with serious injuries
The baffling working from home puzzle. Something doesn’t make sense
I’ve worked in 60 countries – here is what people have said to me about Ireland
‘He had his key in the door when it happened’: Stoneybatter residents stunned by sudden violence
Mr Ryan headed to London to study hotel management at Hendon Technical College and upon graduating he found a job in London’s upmarket Russell Hotel. Two years later in 1964, he was preparing to move to the renowned Frankfurter Hof Hotel in Frankfurt, Germany, when his father telephoned.
A prominent Cork woman was getting married and his father needed him to help out, so he returned to Leeside to do the wedding and then stayed. But he soon realised he needed to find out more about food because some of the guests seemed to know more about what he was serving than he did.
“I had a copy of the Egon Ronay guide and I said to my father, ‘There’s a place in Dublin, also the Russell Hotel. It has one of the best hotel restaurants in Europe and it would be no harm if I could get a bit of training',” he says, adding that he returned knowing far more than when he left.
But Mr Ryan brought back not just culinary skills – he also encountered young Dublin woman, Patsy Fay, whom he had met years earlier in the Ring Gaeltacht. Romance blossomed, leading to marriage in 1968 and the partnership that made the Arbutus Lodge such a success.
Six years later and the couple won their first Michelin star along with the Russell Hotel in Dublin, which sadly had closed by the time the awards were announced. It was the first year the Michelin stars began to be awarded in the UK and Ireland. An extraordinary run of culinary success followed for the Arbutus, which retained that first star until 1983.
“I wasn’t very conscious of the Michelin star back in 1974,” Mr Ryan says. “I was more conscious of guides like the Egon Ronay – there was no mention of the Michelin Guide in Ireland at all at the time and the Egon Ronay had more of a description of the restaurants as well.”
They learned that they had won a Michelin star through the media and, Patsy Ryan says, the whole episode happened without much fanfare as the Michelin judge had come unannounced, although she thinks she remembers the dish they served up to earn the accolade. “He [the Michelin judge] never introduced himself, but I have a funny feeling that he had escalope of pork Normand, which was like an escalope of veal Normand, but we couldn’t get veal that day so we did pork, which we did with cream and apple as opposed to cream and mushrooms with veal.”
Mr Ryan says: “It was a surprise – we had never gone out to win it, but it was very gratifying to learn that we had. We felt we had achieved something, so there was a great sense of satisfaction that all the effort that we had been putting into the restaurant had been justified.”
Among the many guests to have enjoyed the great food prepared by him were U2, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Liam Neeson and his late wife, Natasha Richardson, the actor Peter Bowles, Seamus Heaney and several presidents including Erskine Childers, Patrick Hillery and Mary Robinson.
Joined by Mr Ryan’s younger brother Michael and Michael’s wife, Catherine, the Ryans won Michelin stars for the Arbutus up to 1983, during which time they also bought the Cashel Palace Hotel, Co Tipperary, where they won stars in 1982 and 1983, before again winning stars for Arbutus in 1987 and 1988.
They retired from the restaurant business in 1999 when Mr Ryan set up the successful Arbutus Bread Bakery. This sold in 2024 to Dublin-based Bretzel Bakery and he and his wife are now fully retired, though they remain keenly interested in Irish food and cuisine.
Ms Ryan says: “We love to watch and see who gets the Michelin stars – Ireland has never had a three-star restaurant – we are lucky here in Cork with great restaurants like Dede in Baltimore, which has two stars, but we are still waiting for a three-star and hopefully we will get one soon.”
The Michelin Guide 2025 awards will be announced from Glasgow on Monday, from 6pm
