The Farmgate in Cork's English Market is an oasis of calm, writes Tom Doorley
The most important place in Cork, for food lovers, is the English Market. It is the only covered food market in the land, something that our Continental cousins find truly bizarre. The market is not entirely the preserve of excellent produce. There is plenty of factory-farmed gunk there, too, just as there is a lot of doubtful material finding its way into our farmers' markets these days.
But the English Market is wonderful. It is the only place you can buy drisheen (sooner you than me) and skirts and bodices (of the animal sort). And within it, and very close by, you can source the ingredients of a lifetime of excellent eating. Now, there aren't many places on this island of ours about which that can be said.
The Farmgate occupies one of the galleries above the market, a kind of mezzanine restaurant. Or rather, there is a self-service cafe, and there is the restaurant itself, enclosed behind glass, a little oasis of calm. Kay Harte opened the Farmgate with a view to sourcing all the food within the market, and so it has continued. It gives a whole new meaning to the notion of freshness.
I mean, when you order oysters they send a message to their fishmonger, who slaps some crushed ice in a dish, opens the brutes, pops them on top, adorns the lot with a few wedges of lemon and sends them across. They are then consumed, in my case at least, with (a) rapt attention, (b) some of the Farmgate's excellent soda bread and (c) a glass of very fairly-priced Graves. It doesn't get any better than that.
On the occasion of this oyster orgy - okay, there were six, but they were big bruisers from, as it happens, Oysterhaven - we were two adults and two children. In-service training days for national school teachers have all sorts of hidden benefits.
The non-oyster fans (everyone except me) shared a big starter portion of smoked salmon from the West Cork Smokehouse. This was nice and firm, subtly smoked and of pleasing consistency.
My main course was remarkable. Now, there's usually nothing very exciting about a goats' cheese salad, but this was different. The cheese was the usual log stuff, which is fine and dandy, melted on to slices of baguette, tossed on to a salad of well-dressed - and follow me closely here - meaty lettuce leaves. This lettuce had substance; by heaven it was positively chewy. I don't know if it was hand-reared by biodynamic beard-wearers or produced hydroponically in Holland, but it was darn good salad. And there were plenty of strips of roasted red pepper, one of the things that God expressly designed for use with grilled goats' cheese.
Chargrilled chicken was smoky, crisp and moist and came with a ramekin of buttery, lemony, thyme-scented sauce. Shepherd's pie had good mashed spud underneath the minced shepherd, which is a new one on me, but it worked. The mince was tomatoey and sweetish, with the addition of grated carrot (and possibly some swede) which had melted in.
Lamb's liver and bacon was splendidly simple: fried in bacon fat on the pan, then deglazed with good stock and maybe a touch of flour, and served with crisp streaky. These main courses came with pan-roasted carrots (both orange and yellow, of all things), swede and parsnip, all scented with tarragon. How seasonal can it get?
Only one of us - one of the younger members of the party - managed pud: a gloriously sticky chocolate sponge, liberally coated in warm, melted chocolate, spiked with orange.
With two espressos, two hot chocolates, and three glasses of wine, this very generous lunch came to €82.90.
It strikes me that there will be those who visit Cork for some reason connected with the city's 2005 status as European Capital of Culture, and not get to the English Market. In which case, they will be missing a very important and precious bit of culture.
The Farmgate Cafe, The English Market, Cork, 021-4278134.
WINE CHOICE
Sicilian Feudo d'Elemi Grillo is a crisp white with a difference, while the red Nero d'Avola has a chocolatey richness (€20/€4.50 a glass). Château la Mazerolle is new to me, but the white 2003 is quite fat and round, while the red 2001 is supple and decent claret (both €23/€5 a glass). Château les Clauzots Graves 2002 (€22/€5 a glass) is a triumph, full of grassy Sauvignon. Aotea Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand (€25/€13 half bottle) is a Cork favourite, while Mas Collet (€25) from Tarragona is a ripe, oaky red with a bit of style. Ten wines in all, and a few less interesting quarter bottles.