Ireland Guide
Cork
Ballymaloe
Around 10km southeast of Midleton, off the R629 Cloyne– Ballycotton road, lies 
Ballymaloe House ( 
021/465 2531, 
www.ballymaloe.ie ; Price: €250-300), the most famous restaurant in Ireland, serving exceptional modern Irish cuisine using carefully sourced local ingredients. There's much more to this grand enterprise than just a restaurant: accommodation in the vine-covered, originally fifteenth-century manor house and adjacent courtyard mixes country-house style with contemporary features, and there's a heated outdoor pool, five-hole golf course and tennis court in the extensive grounds. Attached to the house is a shop selling crafts and, of course, kitchenware, with an excellent daytime café. The nearby cookery school ( 021/464 6785, www.cookingisfun.ie ) runs prestigious twelve-week certificate courses as well as a host of short courses, and you can visit the school's restored nineteenth-century gardens, featuring the largest formal herb garden in Ireland and a Celtic maze (May– Sept Mon– Fri 11am–5pm; €6).