THEY will be whooping it up in Kinsale this weekend, as the annual Gourmet Festival motors into top gear and the town's restaurants fill to bursting.
Anyone who finds the village a little overheated can always repair a few miles eastwards, to Oysterhaven, where Bill Patterson's Oystercatcher restaurant has a Gourmet Festival Menu that includes smoked eel fillets on a blini with a leek and horseradish sauce; parfait of duck livers perfumed with trompettes de mort; confit of wild rabbit on a barley risotto and a Salice Salentino sauce; monkfish tempura with a lime and kumquat chutney; Gressingham duck steak with a mild damson sauce; and apple fritters with a blueberry sorbet. And there are unique savoury desserts such as mushroom trifolata or Scotch woodcock. The dinner menu costs £26.95, reservations on (021) 770822.