Otto Kunze's annual 'pig party' takes place in west Cork tomorrow, and it's the hottest ticket in the county, writes Alannah Hopkin
Everyone remembers their first meal at Otto's in Dunworley. Mine was on a wet November afternoon 18 years ago. The usually inspiring walk along the deserted cliffs above Dunworley Strand on the Seven Heads, way out beyond Courtmacsherry and Timoleague, had been a wash-out. We were cold, wet and hungry, and decided to investigate a sign saying Dunworley Cottage Restaurant, expecting maybe a cup of tea and a sandwich.
The candle-lit tables in the small cosy room were set with red and white checked tablecloths. There was an extensive hand-written menu, with footnotes indicating the origins of the largely organic food, and its suitability for vegetarians or coeliacs. We ordered a chicken stir-fry, of memorable spiciness and crunchiness, and brill with lemon butter, which was sea-fresh and perfectly cooked. A tall young man in impeccable whites, topped with a chef's toque that brushed against the low ceiling, answered our request to meet the genius who had prepared this feast. It was Otto Kunze.
Otto trained as a social worker in Berlin during the heady days of student unrest in the late 1960s, and now applies his analytical skills to the growing and cooking of organic food. Before moving to Ireland, he studied climate charts and identified a small strip between Galley Head and the Old Head of Kinsale as having the highest annual temperature and the lowest rainfall.
He learnt his trade with Gerry Galvin, founder-chef of the Vintage restaurant in Kinsale, who went on to run Drimcong House in Moycullen, and has now retired from cooking to write. He remembers Otto warmly: "He literally knocked on our door at the Vintage, and said he wanted work. He was extraordinarily committed, driving 22 miles in on his Honda 50, and back at night. As time went by, he would arrive laden with home-grown vegetables, all sorts of herbs and plants."
In 1990 Otto sold the original restaurant (it is now a private home) and bought five acres just down the road. For the 10 years that it took to establish the organic vegetable garden and tunnels behind their shelter belt, Otto moved back into social work, supervising the fostering of German children in Irish families. He and his Dutch partner, Hilde, set about restoring a pair of cottages on their site to their original thatched condition. They lived in one, while their house and restaurant was built, and now rent them out for self-catering. Their business runs as a "restaurant with rooms". They open every night except Monday, offering a set menu with a wide range of choices. "This is our paradise," says Hilde, and on a clear sunny day, with the cliffs carpeted in sea pinks, larks singing overhead, the blue sea stretching to the far horizon, a garden overflowing with organic fruit and vegetables, and a family of porkers snuffling about their pen, you'd have to agree.
But the porkers are about to be dispatched to another kind of paradise. Of the litter of eight saddleback Tamworth cross-bred pigs, seven are for the chop, as Otto puts it, while the lucky eighth will go as a breeding boar to Fingal Ferguson of the Gubbeen Smokehouse. Otto ensures that the pigs have a stress-free slaughter-house experience, as this prevents panic-hormones leaving their residue in the meat. The carcasses are returned to Dunworley, where they are cut up by a local butcher under Otto's supervision. Much of the offal is processed by Fingal Ferguson and Frank Krawczyk, and returns to Dunworley as sausages and salami. The mouth-watering meat will be the star item on the menu at Otto's 20th Pig Party.
The original Dunworley Cottage restaurant opened on June 14th, 1984, and every year Otto marks the anniversary by staging a "pig party" which is open to the public. Spare ribs and chops bathed in different marinades, sausages and other pork products, as well as wild salmon, will be barbecued. There will be a rolling buffet of vegetarian dishes and salads, and for dessert, their own cherries, redcurrants, strawberries, and, weather-permitting, the first raspberries. u
Otto's Pig Party takes place tomorrow, June 27th, 2-7 p.m. Tickets €35 to members of the Slow Food Movement, €40 to non-members. Book on 023-40461 or see www.ottoscreative catering.com