Dining the Wild Atlantic Way

Aniar sits on Lower Dominick Street in Galway’s West End, a small room with wood and stone surfaces and no ceremony. The evening runs across 24 courses, each built around what the farms, wildlands, shores and waters of the west of Ireland produced that week. The menu is written each morning. The dishes served the night before are always different.

Chestnut is in Ballydehob, a village of fewer than 300 people in west Cork, 40 minutes from Skibbereen. Chef Rob Krawczyk has held a Michelin star here since 2019. The eight-course tasting menu draws on herbs, vegetables, meat and fish from the surrounding countryside, with the season determining what appears on the plate rather than a fixed menu deciding in advance.

Both restaurants operate on the same basis. The landscape is the menu. What is available today shapes what is served tonight.

The western coast of Ireland produces some of the finest seafood in Europe. The Atlantic water is cold, clean and rich, and the shellfish, wild fish and seaweed that come from it are distinct from anything produced in warmer, more farmed waters. Galway Bay oysters have been cultivated here for centuries and are served raw, without dressing, at Aniar as a statement of the ingredient itself. The same bay produces clams, mussels, crab and lobster, all of which appear on the menu in season.

The land behind the coast is equally productive. The mild, wet climate of the west of Ireland creates conditions for wild plants, herbs and fungi that most of Europe’s kitchens cannot access, and the farms supplying both restaurants are known to the chefs personally, in most cases within a short drive. Sea purslane, rock samphire, wild garlic, wood sorrel, pennywort and foraged mushrooms appear on both menus in season, alongside produce from a small network of local growers whose supply shapes the menu rather than responding to it.

Aniar’s kitchen is led by Chef Patron JP McMahon, who fosters traditional cooking and preservation methods alongside foraged ingredients: curing, pickling, smoking and fermenting all feature regularly. Chestnut’s kitchen works closely with local producers, foragers and fishermen in west Cork, with their supply determining the shape of each evening.

Both Aniar and Chestnut are small restaurants in consistent demand. Aniar seats around 30 covers and Chestnut is similarly intimate. At peak season both are reserved weeks ahead, and arriving without a booking is not an option.

The tasting menu format means the evening takes time.Aniar’s 24 courses run across three to four hours. Chestnut’s eight courses take a similar amount of time. Both are best approached as the main event of the day rather than a stop between other plans.

Wine pairings at both are worth taking. Aniar offers a classic wine pairing alongside a non-alcoholic house juice pairing. Chestnut’s selection leans toward natural and biodynamic wines from small producers, chosen to work with the foraged and seasonal character of the food.

At Aniar, the 24 courses build from the lightest ingredients at the start through to richer dishes before returning to the landscape in the dessert courses, sea buckthorn, meadowsweet and blackcurrant leaf among the recurring presences. The service takes its time with each course explaining in enough detail to understand the sourcing and method without the explanation becoming the point of the dish.

At Chestnut, the eight courses are more substantial in portion, with the kitchen’s west Cork identity expressed most clearly in the fish and shellfish courses, where the Atlantic is directly present on the plate. The former pub setting gives the room an informality that the quality of the food does not diminish.

Booking a table months in advance is no guarantee of knowing what will be served at either restaurant. That is, in both cases, entirely the point.

Both Aniar and Chestnut require advance booking secured well ahead of travel dates, with the most sought-after slots at both filling weeks in advance. Do Not Disturb handles reservations at both restaurants as part of a wider Wild Atlantic Way itinerary, with timing coordinated around travel between Galway and west Cork and accommodation chosen to suit the character of each location.

For guests making the journey specifically for the food, Do Not Disturb can build the itinerary around both restaurants, identifying the right base for each dinner, arranging transfers and pairing each evening with experiences along the route that reflect the same relationship with the landscape that both kitchens work from. The food at both restaurants is inseparable from the place it comes from, and the itinerary is built with that in mind.

Ready to plan your dining experience along the Wild Atlantic Way? Speak with Do Not Disturb to begin your journey.