Kinsale's gourmet fest celebrates 40 years

The Kinsale Gourmet Festival takes place from October 7th-9th and marks the 40th anniversary of the ever-popular event. 

The festival is hosted by Kinsale’s ten Good Food Circle restaurants, and each restaurant works to show off the talent of their chefs, with beautifully presented food, featuring largely local ingredients from sea and land, and accompanied by carefully selected wines.

The festival will be opened by Brian Cronin, founding member of the Good Food Circle, who with his wife, Ann, established the original Blue Haven Restaurant. He will be flying in from Spain as a guest of the event, which will host many well-known personalities with close links to the festival down the years, and several former restaurateurs. 

Kinsale Good Food Circle was established back in the 1970s when half a dozen exceptional restaurants opened in Kinsale at around the same time. The owners quickly realised that in such a small town, it was more beneficial to co-operate than to compete, and formed the ad hoc marketing group, which has evolved into today’s Good Food Circle.The festival kicks off in style with a Laurent Perrier champagne reception at 6.30pm on Friday 7 October, followed by a celebratory five-course Taste of West Cork black tie dinner at Acton’s Hotel. The menu will feature locally-sourced produce including seafood and shellfish caught off the coast of West Cork, locally reared beef from Kinsale’s craft butchers, and farmhouse cheeses from West Cork, accompanied by wines from Christy’s Wines and C&C Gleesons. 

Barry Murphy will be MC on the night, and the dinner will be followed by dancing to the Paul O’Donnell Band well into the small hours.

The Festival concludes on Sunday with the 4-course Fruits de Mer Spectacular, an elegant luncheon with platters of lobster, crab prawns and other delights from the sea. Participating restaurants in this year’s Festival are Restaurant d’Antibes@The White House, Blue Haven, Finns’ Table, Fishy Fishy, Jim Edwards, Man Friday, Pier One@the Trident Hotel, Toddies at The Bulman, Sidney’s@Actons Hotel and The White Lady. See www.kinsalerestaurants.com for more.