Bridgestone Top 100 Restaurants
Review
“Still doing good things up here with the beef hanging, and getting the great fish such as gurnard, ling & megrim straight from the Greencastle fish auction”. They sure are doing the good thing, Donal & Kevin Doherty are not just in their restaurant, where meticulous care in sourcing and cooking results in cracking food, but also in their bar where, as Caroline Byrne notes, “the cooking is prepared to the same high standard as in the adjoining restaurant”. The Doherty’s are, in particular, obsessive about their beef, taking the same sort of care in sourcing and then hanging the meat that you might find with a Siennese cook who is passionate about their bistecca. It means that the roast beef with baby onion and bacon sauce, or their bone-in rib-eye steak for two, are going to confront, and amaze, you with the sheer umami essence of great Donegal beef. They also attach the epithet “unique” to that rib-eye, and also to the 21 day dry-aged sirloin, and unique is what they are. But, then, the fish cookery is just as attractive, just as carefully executed. What to choose? A tasty dilemma!

John & Sally McKenna, 2009

Bridgestone Top 100 Restaurants
John and Sally McKenna began their research into Irish food in 1989 and have won many awards for their food writing and broadcasting, and are the only Irish writers to win both the André Simon and Glenfiddich Awards.