An Irishwoman's Diary

‘LOVED the food..and kept the cutlery as souvenirs . . . oops!” – Dermot Morgan, actor. “Am I happy?” – Tom Murphy, playwright. “The best dinner in Ireland!!!” – Carlos Fuentes, writer, Mexico. “Lovely lamb.” – Derek Walcott, poet, Saint Lucia. And perhaps lost for words, the Carroll sisters expressed themselves in lipstick in 1995, leaving two pink “smackers” in Harriet Leander’s visitors’ book at Nimmo’s restaurant in Galway.

As credits go, their endorsement almost outshone the aforementioned from Walcott, Fuentes and company. However, the Carrolls’ artwork was closely rivalled by that of Jessica-May Hopkins, who drew a picture of a heron standing with fish in mouth in Corrib, along with a portrait of her six-and-a-half year-old self looking out of “Nimmo’s window”.

"There is no more pleasant place to watch swans," the late writer John McGahern agreed in his New York Timesmagazine mention, noting that the restaurant's "specialties" included "wild salmon on a bed of creamed leak". Other sated and satisfied customers included Germaine Greer, PD James, Ruth Rendell and Malcolm McLaren.

Nimmo’s creator was an archivist by profession, and a Swedish-speaking Finn by background, who flew into Shannon from Switzerland one “cold and stormy day” in January 1991. Behind her was a job filing Stravinsky’s musical manuscripts in Basel. Not long after her Atlantic landing, Leander heard that a restored riverbank building in Galway needed a kindly new tenant, and so she opened its doors . . . and her restaurant visitors’ book.

“If only stones could talk,” she muses now, in her memoir of life there from 1991 to 2004. Named after the Scottish engineer who built so many roads and piers throughout the west, the stone-fronted building dated back to the 17th century, at least, and had latterly been used as a garage, and as a sausage factory.

It was saved, and refurbished, by De Dannan musician Alec Finn and artist Leonie King who leased it to her; and although its location resonates history, it was surrounded by building sites back then. Here, by Spanish Arch, the fish market was once alive with fresh catches in baskets, while she was enthralled by the fact that visiting ships once bore wines, olive oil, spices and more into the nearby harbour.

When Leander visited the Aran island of Inis Meáin, an elderly man recounted how his father would set their boat on the sandbank just underneath Nimmo’s building and sell herrings. It gave her an idea...a “sail-in”, where she served wine through the restaurant’s French windows to “thirsty sailors” coming up the river.

Before long, Nimmo’s (now run as Ard Bia) had earned a reputation for doing things a little differently. One stormy night, when it felt as if the roof might hitch a lift to Dublin, a young and slightly timid woman asked if she might come in and play a tune with her friends. As Leander remembers, the young woman was made more than welcome on the condition that it would help them all to forget the gloomy evening.

“We soon realised that it was Sharon Shannon and a few of her friends who were tired and hungry after a busy Christmas time...” The Harlem Gospel Choir has sung upstairs, De Dannan weaved many magical moments, and singers such as Maria Tecce made Hallowe’en a night to remember. And both midsummer and all souls’ eve were occasions when diners were encouraged to dress up, or down, or both.

Once, a nymph caught fire – but was happily extinguished – and one of the “scariest” outfits involved a master and his beast, controlled with a whip and heavy chains. When same chains broke, beast roared, and audience screamed and screamed.

Leander discovered that her workplace had been haunted, having experienced a “gentle touch” on her shoulder. “Stories, the web of imagination, made us dream of this poor Spanish gentleman – he fell in love with a beautiful girl from Claddagh, but was unable to marry her as the king of Claddagh would not allow it,” she says.

"Whatever you believe, a couple of the women who worked in Nimmo's told me they were terrified when they suddenly felt they were being forced through and then thrown out of the upstairs kitchen window. OK, let's say he tried to . . ." Leander peppers her prose with recipes, which she collected during extensive travels and adapted for the Irish palate. "I think you can always tell a lot about a people by what and how they eat," she says. Her formulae are simple, such as her three ingredients for "John Dory à la Picasso" or her saltimbocca, a famous Roman recipe which translates as "hop into the mouth".

Her fish soup remained on the menu for 14 years, while her granny’s fare was served every Christmas without fail – mulled wine, a “hefty” borscht soup with a dollop of sour cream, served with pastry parcels of meat, fish or vegetables, and plum tart with cinnamon cream.

Leander, now a successful visual artist, paints a picture of her staff as close family. The only ban she ever imposed was on expletives in the kitchen. “Bad language gives bad vibes and a bad taste to the soup . . .” She never took bookings, she had no favourites, while admitting that “it broke my heart to turn Cillian Murphy away on several nights”. After all, a “Hollywood star was no more important to us than any other customer,” she explains. They were “all special . . .”

Nimmo’s: Anecdotes and Recipes

by Harriet Leander, is published by Varsity Press