A Taste of Kilkenny

After a couple of days around Dublin catching up with family and friends it was time for another day of food touring, and this time my destination was Kilkenny. Kilkenny is a rising star of the Irish food scene and Ann Phelan had been charged with promoting some of the brightest lights of the scene in the guise of Trail Kilkenny. After a coffee and a chat about what I was hoping to do in terms of a food tour in the region we set off towards Stoneyford and our first stop was at Knockdrinna Farm shop and Artisan café.

Here I sampled a number of cheeses including a semi-firm goat's milk cheese in the classic French Tomme style that had been served to the queen on her recent state visit. Well I was impressed by it! And apparently I was not alone as Mary explained that people had been driving in from all over the country to sample it. The farm has a number of animals – pigs, goats, turkeys, massive rabbits etc that children love to come out and play with. Mary also produces very well regarded free range rare breed pork.

Our next stop was Jerpoint Glass, a maker of beautiful handmade glass. There is a small shop showcasing the works of glass including some stunning pieces but the highlight was watching the glass blowers at work. From Jerpoint we stopped off at Goatsbridge Trout farm where Margaret explained the process of trout farming and why trout farming was no longer a dirty word. She was clearly very passionate about what she did, and had a lot of plans for the future.  We stopped briefly into Jerpoint House, a stunning housewith very gracious hosts, on whose grounds are some very ancient ruins. I was given a quick “goose dog” (you’ve heard of sheep dogs?!) show. See here for what this means!

From here we headed down to Thomastown where we stopped into the beautiful Blackberry café run by the energetic owner Jackie. Here I had a delicious lunch of Knockdrinna quiche and a side salad while watching one of the village’s oddballs wandering around with a tame fox on his head. I swear I had had nothing to drink at this point!

We dropped in to the Truffle Fairy, an award-winning chocolatier where I was shown around and Mary explained the process of making chocolate and agreed that she would be happy to do a chocolate demo for our clients. We stopped briefly into a quirky craft shop called clay creations where Brid gave us a short demo on how she makes her most famous pieces.

As time was now running short we headed back to Kilkenny, and after a quick visit of the beautiful Kilkenny castle it was time for me to catch the train back to Dublin, tired but excited about the prospects for an excellent food tour in Ireland if we can tie all the pieces together.