I was on my way to visit two of the island’s 16 residents, John Desmond and Ellmary Fenton, who run Island Cottage. With a maximum of two students at a time, it’s the smallest cookery school in Ireland and possibly the world. There’s a restaurant in the cottage’s front room and, despite its remoteness, it is full most nights during the summer, the only time it’s open.
I’d wanted to visit for some months. Only a few weeks before I had eaten at Taillevent in Paris, a restaurant that has retained its three Michelin stars for more than 30 years. Desmond, who is Irish, had been a chef there and the formality of the place — its haute cuisine and strict service — was not something I could imagine anywhere in Ireland.
Chefs have fearsome reputations and Desmond may well have mellowed in middle age but he seemed cheerful, patient and talked exuberantly about boats, food and his career. “I had no intention of coming back, from Paris or New York, where I’ve also worked. I was teaching cuisine in Paris, cooking private dinners for dignitaries and stars. But I visited Heir on holiday and thought . . . if I were to come back, it would be here. It’s so peaceful, it doesn’t even have a pub. Besides, I hate the sun and the heat.”
Just as well.
Island Cottage is small, the restaurant simply set out with pine tables and chairs. The view in the conservatory is over fields, the sea and the few lanes that web the island. The kitchen is tiny and there is no fancy oven. The knives are ancient blades from E. Dehillerin in Paris and you can hear the main courses squeal, quack and moo in the background. They were about to meet their doom. Apron on, knife out, ready for action .
Now I’ve always been a great fan of ducks. It started with Donald, went on to Daffy and then it went all à l’orange. Even so I never expected this relationship to get so visceral. Eight birds confronted me on the block. Head, giblets and feathers had gone, thank goodness. All I had to do was cut off the nose, take out the wishbone, cut the legs off, then strip breasts from the bone, take the wings off and chop up the carcass for stock with a cleaver. “Let the cleaver do the work,” said Desmond.
Never having done this before, I found the most worrying thing was that by the eighth bird I had become readily accustomed to spraying blood and digging my fingers into the entrails. Desmond never interrupted, but gently offered helpful comments, held the knife to demonstrate and talked of the anatomy of the bird, the hidden confusion of muscle and bone that you need to deal with.
The good thing about the course is that because it’s for a maximum of two people, John and his partner Ellmary (who used to manage L’Obélisque restaurant in the Hotel de Crillon in Paris) can tailor it to your level of cooking. So you can be anything from an absolute beginner through to a Michelin-starred chef.
Cooking is one of those things where advice is either old hat or an epiphany. I had a series of epiphanies — heat the oil before roasting potatoes, put a cloth underneath a cutting board to steady it, take the meat out of the fridge an hour before cooking to rest it, add a knob of butter at the end of a sauce to give it shine.
My duck breast was pan fried — fat side first for eight minutes, then two minutes on the meat side, then served with the roast potatoes in rosemary and thyme, fresh peas and a hearty glass of red from the Costière de Nimes.
I was in too good a mood to notice whether it was raining as I returned to the pierhead, and realised it wasn’t only when I saw John Moore by the boat pointing to the sky. “You see, the sky in Ireland is also available in blue.”
NEED TO KNOW
Getting there: Ryanair (0871 2460000, www.ryanair.com) flies from Stansted to Cork, about 60 miles (100km) from Heir Island, from £19.76 return.
Car hire: Murrays Europcar (00 353 21 4917300, www.europcar.ie).
Island Cottage (00 353 28 38102, www.islandcottage.com) has two-day courses for £158pp full board.
