Wouldn’t it be great to set up a ___ here? It is a familiar thought on holiday. For most, it’s just an impulse, but some do actually follow through. John Doyle used to run Doyle’s Seafood Restaurant in Dingle, which took a sensuous delight in flavour that seemed somewhat sinful back in the 1970s before our obsession with food had taken root.
The restaurant still exists, but Doyle now runs Mas Pujol del Mitg, self-catering gites in a restored 19th century Catalan farmhouse in the Pyrenees. Rather than waking early to barter with Dingle fishermen for the best catch, he now wakes to rout wild boars from his vegetable garden. “They are pests but delicious to eat so I can’t have it every way.” The gourmands who used to make pilgrimage to his restaurant, tipped-off by zealots of the foodie underground, have been replaced by nature lovers who come for hill walking and cross-country biking.
Unfortunately, the gites are self-catering, so one doesn’t get to re-experience those remarkable dishes that brought the restaurant renown. See maspujol-delmitg.com
For that recherche du temps perdu experience try Languedoc where, in the village of Thézan Lès Béziers, Martin and Sile Dwyer ,who ran Dwyer’s restaurant in Waterford for 15 years, now have a guesthouse, Le Presbytère. Their chambre d’Hôte is in an old priest’s house dating to the 12th century. Martin gets to express what John McKenna once called his “fleetness of flavour” in his breakfasts of brioche, compotes, fruit and granola. He also provides dinner from the market. See lepresbytere.net
For its brief existence, Marc Michel’s Organic Life restaurant in north Wicklow inspired a similar devotion to Doyle’s. Gourmet fanatics travelled far to experience food that was gathered straight from the surrounding fields of Michel’s organic farm – the first organically certified farm in Ireland, back in 1983.
The restaurant sadly closed in 2012, though its demise has given him time to focus on a new venture, Ibiza Sana, a yoga retreat in an alluringly modernist building in the hills of Ibiza. Restorative food is a key element, with Michel’s vegetarian cooking served to hungry yogis. See ibizasanayogaretreat.com
The Hamill family are an unknown entity in culinary terms, though if you’ve ever broken down in the midlands you’ve probably been rescued by them. They run a garage and recovery business and Ann Hamill looks after the car rental business. Once a month she flies to Emilia-Romagna, west of Bologna, where Parmesan, Parma ham and Balsamic vinegar are made. It’s here she runs the Casa Lara Cooking Experience in an old farmhouse in the mountains. See casa-lara.com. These ventures are all labours of love: they clearly show just how much work is involved in acting on those holiday impulses.