This is the New Irish Food: Celeb Chef Offers Glimpse Into Ireland's Culinary Revival

UPDATE March 20: Catherine Fulvio was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for her 6-part "A Taste of Ireland" series that aired on Recipe.TV. Also in her category: Giada de Laurentis, Valerie Bertinelli, Molly Yeh and Pati Jinich. The awards are handed out May 5th in Pasadena, California. Good luck, Catherine! Read the Irish Times article here.

My visit w/Catherine Fulvio at Ballyknocken in February 2019

“You come here, you experience Ireland in one fell swoop.”

Chef Catherine Fulvio is talking about Ballyknocken, her childhood home in Ireland’s County Wicklow and, today, one of the island nation’s premier culinary destinations.

“When we welcome guests,” she continues, “it gives us a chance to share our passion for all things Irish – our culture, our home, our food.”

Mrs. Fulvio is a well-known personality in Ireland, a bona fide celebrity chef, with six Irish TV series and six cookbooks to her name; American audiences will recognize her from Netflix’s popular cooking show, “Lords and Ladles.” Her celebrity, certainly, has bolstered Ballyknocken’s success as a place to stay – a sprawling 280-acre estate less than 40 miles south of Dublin that’s embraced by the undulating Wicklow Mountains and a rippling green landscape as far as the eye can see.

But the appeal of Ballyknocken – home to a seven-room bed-&-breakfast and Chef Fulvio’s popular cooking school, or cookery school, as the Irish call it – may lay more with the genuine experience it offers its visitors, who come here from all over Ireland and all over the world.

“This is personal for us because it is our home, and I’m caring for it for the next generation,” says the mother of a 16-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son. “So guests who come from America are blown away with the experience because they get to see inside a real Irish home: the loud fire burning, the vintage furniture and, of course, the meals. It’s just part of that Irish hospitality. We have a great curiosity for people, and we love making a connection with them.”

The word, “ballyknocken,” stems from Gaelic and means, “home on the little hill.” Chef Fulvio’s family estate sits at the foot of Carrick Hill and was founded 50 years ago by Mrs. Fulvio’s mother – one of the first B&Bs in Ireland, set in a Victorian farmhouse that dates back to the 1850s. The chef remembers her as “a real entrepreneur” who was the first in Ireland to specialize in “hill-walking holidays” and who wrote her own book on walks across the surrounding countryside. Today, Ballyknocken still offers packages – from one to seven nights – that include picnics and treks across the Wicklow Mountains, where views include neighboring Wales and the picturesque Irish Sea.

Mrs. Fulvio’s mother was also her first gastronomic influence. “I grew up cooking with my mum, who cooked three meals a day for guests,” recalls the chef who, at age six, would be tasked with picking fruits, gathering eggs, milking cows and making butter. “We were always food producers,” she says, “who understood where food came from and what good, quality food is all about.”

Ballyknocken

That connection from the farm to the plate remains an integral part of the Ballyknocken persona. Right outside Mrs. Fulvio’s cookery school, once her father’s milking barn that’s now a demonstration kitchen flanked by various student stations, the garden blooms year-round. Rhubarb, rainbow chard, kale, broccoli, beans, artichokes, zucchini and squash grow seasonally. Herbs range from lemon verbena and cilantro to rosemary and sage. Edible flowers in a cavalcade of color abound. And in the greenhouse she erected just last summer, heirloom tomatoes, chilies, eggplants and even bananas grow undeterred. Sheep and cows graze along the hills. Trout swim the rivers nearby.

Chef Fulvio's Beef & Stout Pies w/Potato Pastry Topping

“Ireland has always been an agricultural nation,” says Chef Fulvio. A blend of rain and sun create a lengthy growing season, produce flourishes, grass thrives and animals feed in the great, wide open. “You need to understand how Ireland operates as an agricultural nation to appreciate how good the food is.

“But,” she continues, “perhaps we’ve been slow to get the message out. For so long, we have told story of our famine and emigrants, and Irish stew and soda bread – don’t get me wrong, I love them! But we are so much more than that in Ireland!”

Leveraging her notoriety, Chef Fulvio is among a new generation of Irish culinarians who are, indeed, getting the message out. A culinary revival is afoot in Ireland, and places like Ballyknocken have become ground zero. Customized, food-centric vacations for groups small and large take place year-round. And cooking classes, scheduled around Mrs. Fulvio’s traveling and filming schedule and offered to both B&B guests and drop-ins, are hands-on. Usually held on Saturdays and Sundays, they’re priced at €140 (about $157), last four hours and include a sit-down meal and a treasure trove of recipes. The current spring schedule includes themes like “Mastering Fish and Sauces,” “Fabulous Mains and Desserts” and, inspired by the chef’s husband’s roots, “Southern Italian Kitchen.”

I made this with Chef Fulvio, and it was awesome: Chocolate Beetroot Guinness Cake w/Ganache & Raspberries
Click here for the recipe!

Chef Fulvio incorporates a lot of her own family history into her classes and demos, including recipes that have been passed down for five generations. “Old, traditional recipes of baking and cooking to be sure,” she says. “And yet at the same time, it’s fresh and modern. This is what we’re producing now. This is the new Irish food.”

For more information, visit ballyknocken.ie.

Check out Chef Fulvio's recipes at catherinefulvio.com/recipes.


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