5 Best Restaurants in County Cork, Ireland

The last thing you would expect to find behind the typical, small pub facade located along a long street filled with a row of modest vernacular buildings, is a heightened level of dining experience with a sophisticated, inventive menu. Schull man Rob Krawczyk runs the kitchen a few miles from his hometown in Ballydehob, and he's impressing professional food critics and novices alike with his inventive taster menus. Expect the unexpected: butter comes with a turf-infused flavor, quail eggs are accompanied with caviar and oysters, while herbal tea to clear the palate has a snap of whiskey. Restaurant Chestnut opens from 6 pm, and you should plan to park yourself for just shy of three hours to sample all nine offerings on his daily changing menu.

Expect fresh, in-season catch from the pier---hake; or shrimps, prawns, scallops, lobster, and crab---to feature on the menu. The setting is gorgeously maritime with sea views from a number of windows. There are six recently refurbished rooms on-site for visitors who want to extend the visit.   

The small, dark, L-shape room (hence the name) on the ground floor of a handsome town house is dominated by a blue-tiled chimney with a wood-smoke grill, whose aroma pervades the room. There's a masculine ambience here, as befits a brewery and smokehouse renowned for hearty portions of grilled food and triple-cooked chips. The always-buzzy atmosphere is encouraged by helpful, welcoming staff.

One of the best—and busiest—informal lunch spots in town is on a terraced gallery above the fountain at the Princes Street entrance to the atmospheric English Market. All ingredients used at the café are purchased in the market below. One side of the gallery is self-service; the other side is glassed in and has table service (reservations advised). Weekend dinner available.

When it comes to an organically sourced menu, it's hard to match the offerings at the Casey family's wonderful, oceanfront restaurant close to the tiny, roadside hamlet of Baltimore. The mussels come from their farm at Roaring Bay, water from the property's spring well, and root vegetables travel a couple of feet from their garden to the kitchen, while the bread arrives warm to the table as it's freshly baked on-site. The produce they can't source on-site hails from local West Cork trawlers and farms. To cap it all off, the craft beer by bottle and on tap like Sherkin Lass Pale Ale comes from the family's nano-brewery in the garden. Of course, none of this would amount to anything if they didn't bring it all together with culinary perfection and precision (as they do) at the hands of their pedigree chefs.