TasteFest Cork

Thursday marked the beginning of ‘TasteFest Cork’ a spectacular food festival featuring 15 of Cork’s top restaurants and their most popular menu items, loads of locally produced dairy products, from cream and cheeses to ice cream, cheesecakes and panna cotta. There were also local jams, relishes, sweets, meats, and pastries. You could even relax with a professional massage. First, I must say that the festival was brilliant! We had a great time, we spent several hours perusing the stalls, sampling delicious goodies, and watching demonstrations from celebrity chefs.

Toffee and Marshmallow Cheesecake with Crackling Praline
from Electric.

We were delighted with all of the free samples from the exhibitors, we sampled several varieties of handcrafted Irish Cheddar from Old Irish Creamery. We had previously purchased the Irish Whiskey Cheddar from our local supermarket, and we thought it was delightful, so we were eager to try their other varieties. They were all amazing, but we ended up narrowing our selection to three, Oak Smoked Cheddar, (because my husband goes nuts for anything smoked!) Vintage Red Cheddar, and our favourite Garlic and Herbs Cheddar. We sampled some delicious ham from Carroll’s. We also sampled yoghurt, and the most amazing vanilla ice cream from Glenilen Farm. We had loads more but those were my favourites!

Meringue and Cream with Organic West Cork Strawberries
from Cornstore.

As for the restaurants, the best (in my opinion) were the Spicy Chicken Wings from Boardwalk Bar & Grill, and the Fish and Chips (which happened to be my first experience with fish and chips…I have never really been a fish person) from Hayfield Manor. For dessert, which may or may not have been consumed before our entrees, my absolute favourite, and the thing I cannot wait to try to recreate was the Meringue and Cream with Organic West Cork Strawberries from Cornstore. However, in a close second for my favourite dish was the Toffee and Marshmallow Cheesecake with Crackling Praline from Electric

We also enjoyed a lovely cooking demonstration by Rachel Allen. I was simply delighted to watch her cook! I have tried a few of her recipes and have been amazed by the results, and she was so lovely in person! It was definitely one of the highlights. She made pan fried mackerel, panzanella, a bean and bacon salad, chocolate crème brulee, and a strawberry flirtini, The festival also had other demonstrations by some of Ireland’s top chefs. One of which I was extremely disappointed to have missed was Benoit Lorge from Lorge Chocolatier.

Overall TasteFest Cork had a great atmosphere, gorgeous food, and brilliant cooking demos. I do have to say the ticket price was a bit much, and the ‘Corkers’ was kind of a pain but in general the experience was fantastic!