Ballymaloe House is celebrating 60 years this year and to mark the occasion a new three-day food festival will be launched to showcase Irish food, drink and hospitality.
Myrtle Allen and her husband Ivan opened The Yeats Room at Ballymaloe back in 1964, becoming one of the first country homes of its kind in Ireland to open their doors to guests.
Ballymaloe Festival of Food
From Friday, May 17-19, the Ballymaloe Festival of Food will offer cooking demos, pop-up dinners, talks, walks, craft exhibitors and activities celebrating the journey of good food from the 'soil and sea to the plate.'
Apiarists, oyster farmers, cheesemakers, local whiskey distillers, artisan bakers and award-winning jam makers, will all be taking part in the festival with chefs from around Ireland and the UK. The festival will also include wine tastings and cocktail making.
Special Guests
The programme includes the Woodshed Restaurant pop-ups including Lee Tiernan of London’s Black Axe Mangal and Nico Reynolds of Lil’ Portie, and guests on both the cooking demonstration stages including Matt Tebbutt, host of Saturday Kitchen, Aishling Moore of Goldie, Marco Pierre White, Lily Ramirez-Foran of Picado Mexican, Clodagh McKenna, Georgina Hayden and many more.
Speakers on the Big Shed Ballymaloe Festival of Food Stage, with a theme of Change We Must!, will be hosted by Karen O’Donoghue from Grow, Cook, Eat, and will include Barrie Quinn of Portnoo Market Garden, Karen O’Donoghue of Happy Tummy Co., Sarah de Brun of Oysome and Chris Fahey of Wildflour, among others.
Tickets
Weekend tickets for all three days are €65 per person, individual day tickets on Friday are €20, with Saturday and Sunday tickets for €25 per person, including both demo stages, drinks theatre, walks and talks, food producers area, and more.
Evening-only tickets on Friday or Saturday evening are €12, and the Woodshed lunches and dinners by guest chefs are €75 and €85 per person respectively. Children under 12 go free.
