Heir Island is a small island situated in Roaringwater Bay, the most southerly bay in Ireland. It’s home to a thriving community of about 25 people, and most of us live in old fishermen’s cottages by the sea.

By 8.30 I’m usually up putting turf in the stove, which heats the whole house, while Ellmary, my wife, is seeing to breakfast. We’ll then sit and chat over tea and soda bread, which I bake every day for the restaurant. I use extra-coarse flour and by day two it’s always perfect, toasted with butter and home-made raspberry jam.

Our restaurant — we call it Island Cottage — is actually in our cottage and it’s open from June until September. Ellmary and I run it together, but I do all the cooking, which is grand, because we only do an evening meal so I have all day to get things ready. There’s no shops on the island, or pubs for that matter, so a lot of our food is brought in, but we have a little harbour and two daily boat services to the mainland, one going to Baltimore and the other to Cunnamore. The later one only takes 10 minutes. What’s handy is that Field’s, one of the supermarkets in Baltimore, does home deliveries for the islanders, so if we put an order in by 9.30am they’ll deliver it to our door by 12.30.

Of course, when we first set up the restaurant 20 years ago, my philosophy was to have a menu that relied as much as possible on local produce. And that’s still the case today. Obviously, being an island, we use a lot of fish, and I’m lucky because a couple of fishermen provide me with sea trout, pollock, mullet, bass, lobster and crab. And the most beautiful shrimp, too, which make a great starter. To cook that, I put the live shrimp in a pot of salted water, and as soon as they come to the boil I transfer them to cold water. I serve them with mayonnaise I make myself, using a little fennel. That’s typical of my style — fresh, simple, no frills.

Most of us on the island have our own boats, and on a Monday or Tuesday morning I’ll get out mine and go fishing for mackerel myself which is found in abundance in the bay. It’s delicious just baked in the oven and makes a great pâté.

I also use the boat to visit some of the neighbouring islands, like Sherkin or Cape Clear — and Middle Calf, where I get my lamb. Like Heir, Middle Calf has beautiful beaches, but it’s uninhabited, so it’s great for the sheep, which roam free. They’re owned by a farmer in West Cork, and all I can say is that the taste of the lamb is incredible.

At 2 I’ll begin preparations in the kitchen for the evening. In our dining room, we cater for up to 24, and probably how we differ from most restaurants is that we don’t offer a choice here. Each day I prepare just one €45 menu — a starter, main course, salad, cheese, dessert and filter coffee. Wine is extra. I don’t accommodate any kind of dietary restrictions — it’s just what I do. I guess you get to a stage in your life where you know how you want to do things, and I’m just lucky that, as remote as we are, we’re popular with visitors from the mainland who’ve heard about us.

At 4pm Ellmary and I sit down to have our own main meal of the day, a sort of late-lunch-cum-early-dinner. Maybe we’ll have lobster or a crab or mushroom risotto. We were both born on the mainland, but we trained and worked abroad before deciding to come and settle here. I was a trainee chef at the Ritz in Paris and then worked in various French restaurants before becoming professeur de cuisine at the Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne.

As well as the restaurant I also run several cookery courses over the summer, and one of them’s devoted to duck, which I love and which is regularly on my menu. I’ve been getting my ducks from a farmer in Skeaghanore in West Cork for years now, so, again, I know where they’re reared and how they’re kept. A favourite recipe is sliced duck breast with a béarnaise, lemon or red wine sauce. I begin by cooking the skin side of the breast in a hot pan for eight minutes to remove the fat, and then on the other side for a further two. For the red wine sauce I’ll reduce the wine with shallots and then add a stock made using the duck bones. The stock’s brilliant for all sorts of things, and duck fat makes the best roast potatoes.

Our guests for the evening arrive at 8.15, just as the summer sun is making its slow descent. I love doing a hot dessert to round off the meal — maybe a soufflé or crêpes suzettes with a fruit coulis. The blackberries are in abundance here by late summer, so they’re perfect for that, but if it’s really hot I’ll use them to make something refreshing like a blackberry sorbet. The last boat back to the mainland doesn’t leave until 11.55, so there’s then plenty of time to enjoy the food and the sunset across the water.

Then, when our home is quiet once more, Ellmary and I will wash and tidy up and get ready for bed. The aromas of the cooking will linger, the sea will beat gently against the shore. And I will no doubt drift off knowing I will taste this wonderful life all over again tomorrow.

www.islandcottage.com

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