Mountain House, Clonakilty, West Cork
Go tell it on the Mountain, the A-team are here.
They’re crazy in West Cork. Pure Cork? More like Pure Loco, like.
This is the place where people have opened restaurants cooking Japanese food served to two tables in an Old Bishop’s Palace (and where the female chef won an early star from the Guide Michelin for her efforts). It’s also the place where people would open a restaurant in a single room cottage with a no-choice set menu – on an island with no regular boat service. Great business plan!
And yes, it’s also the place where people have opened a restaurant serving elevated Turkish street food in a wee coastal town, and snagged two stars for their efforts.
Stories like this abound throughout the county, going back decades. West Cork is where chefs do their own, mad, thing. The great food writer Helen Rosner, who writes the smartest restaurant reviews in The New Yorker, expressed the maverick modus operandi like this:
“You get the sense that it is run by people who are interested in chasing down ideas, in playing around, and in adhering to a dangerously loosey-goosey sort of business model entirely dependent on their taste, skill and self-assurance…’
Helen wasn’t talking about West Cork, but that is the West Cork thing right there, that’s what you find in this curious never-never land with its loosey-goosey economics and nuthin’ but taste, skill and self-assurance. Which brings us to Mountain House, the latest bright star in West Cork’s trippy firmament.
Mountain House is in the hamlet of Ardfield, south of Clonakilty as you head towards the coastline and the lovely sandy stretches of Red Strand and Long Strand. It’s set hard by the road, and for a number of years was run by the Hegarty sisters, who ran the bar and offered good pub food. Now it’s in the hands of John Culloty and Niamh O’Sullivan, husband and wife proprietors. How wonderful to see a country pub with young, energetic owners.
The kitchen is run by a duo who personify that West Cork thing of taste, skill and self-assurance. Joseph Quayne has headed home to Cork after stints at Osteria Lucio, and Allta and having been on the final short-list of the 2025 Eurotoques Young Chef Award.
His lieutenant, Rob Martin, has worked with the great Kenmare maestro Bruce Mulcahy and submitted a fascinating menu which also saw him through to the Eurotoques final. His entry was based on the practices of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of Ireland, and their ethos of self-sufficiency, seasonality and foraging.
Joe and Rob had only been cooking in the restaurant of Mountain House for a bunch of days when we turned up on holiday Monday, but any sign of nerves or hesitancy had been dispelled as fast as the gossip that had spread like wildfire, alerting everyone that something was happening here in Ardfield.
The restaurant is adjacent to the bar – which has the narrowest entrance door in West Cork – and is a long, cosy space, with deep green wainscoting and a low-ceiling. The menu offers four snacks, three small plates, a pair of fresh pasta dishes, and four mains of meat and fish, with a couple of sides.
Right from the kick off, the kitchen was crushing this menu. A tempura of blue oyster mushrooms had a batter light as a spider’s web, enclosing locally-grown mushrooms that defined umami. The oomph! of flavour was explained by the fact that the kitchen use the mycelium at the base of the mushroom and process it with kombu – hunter-gatherer how are ye! Tempura of hake was a neat, amusing tribute to fish’n’ chips, whilst the house focaccia is a bread Joe learnt from Ross Lewis at Osteria Lucio, and is the most lush companion for aubergine dip, cultured butter, and a superb olive tapenade.
The small plates showed again how well this pair learn from their mentors, because the local crab was served on Beamish bread, which Rob learnt from Bruce Mulcahy. It was demon, just right for the crab which uses some of the crab roe to deep end the flavour. It was Joe’s turn next to show how he has mastered live fire whilst working at Allta: grilled chicken thigh comes on a homemade yogurt flatbread, with tzatziki, a miso emulsion and pickled red onion. Even the modest-sounding celeriac and beetroot salad comes with smart tricks like whipped tofu and candied hazelnuts, with shards of crisp pancetta.
Niall Davidson in Allta will also teach you that cooking meat involves dealing with an entire animal carcass, whilst Ross Lewis will show you what al dente actually means when it comes to pasta. The result is a lamb ragu tagliolini, made with the hogget shoulder, and paired with violet artichokes, a scatter of mint, a cloud of Cais na Tir cheese, and the intriguing element of juniper. Fresh ravioli, shaped like sun emoji, also sport those fine blue oyster mushrooms along with kale and asparagus.
The hogget comes as grilled and smoked lamb, with a stonking homemade merguez, and a rich rubble of lentil salad with beetroot and bbq spinach. Fermented blackberries are arrayed across the sliced meat, and the flavours are super-intense, so you might want to order some house chips to offer some starchy contrast.
The team bring a lovely element of playing around with ideas with their dessert of crispy apple pie, with house vanilla ice cream. This a jokey tribute to the McDonald’s pie which has burnt the mouths of millions over many years. The MH version is ace: super pastry dusted with cinnamon sugar, and a tactile, lactic ice. The same ice cream comes with a good espresso as an affogato, and the team have wisely chosen to use the splendid local Stone Valley Roasters beans, which makes for great drinking, and eating. We also managed to taste a new pudding of pannacotta with torched rhubarb and mint, but it will be the apple pie that will dominate your insta streams over the coming months.
There are six on-tap wines served by the glass and the carafe, and ten bottles which range from Vinho Verde to Chateauneuf-du-Pape. For three courses you should expect to spend from €45-€55. Hazel runs the room with great charm, aided by the chefs who ferry out the food and explain everything.
Our lunch was a demonstration of taste, skill and self-assurance, from two chefs who possess wild imaginations and virtuosic skill, and who have learnt at every step of the way like the apt pupils they are. The team are chasing down ideas and having fun, and Mountain House is that crazy West Cork thing, in all its unlikely brilliance.
Sounds amazing!
Now that's exciting!