The annual awards celebrate Ireland’s gold standard champions of the food and hospitality industries. The selections are the result of independent all-year assessments by a team of anonymous experts.
The four Kerry establishments that were named winners are:
– Sheen Falls Lodge in Kenmare: Five-star Hotel of the Year.
– Teach de Broc, Ballybunion: Georgina Campbell 2024 Guesthouse of the Year.
– QC’s Seafood Restaurant, Quinlan & Cooke Boutique Townhouse, Cahersiveen: Georgina Campbell Seafood Restaurant of the Year.
– Castlewood House, Dingle: Ireland’s best Guesthouse breakfast, sponsored by Flahavan’s.
The ceremony featured an engaging panel discussion and a lively Q&A with special guest and award-winning Irish chef, Richard Corrigan, who is a great ambassador for Irish food and an inspiration for young people considering a career in hospitality.
In notes made about each of the winning Kerry establishments, here’s what judges had to say:
Sheen Falls: “A favourite destination from the get-go, its location and understated luxury have always given it special allure and, with two very different but equally appealing restaurants added recently to complement the fine dining offered at its riverside Falls Restaurant, this lovely place is on a roll. The hotel itself also continues to delight, with its spacious rooms, stylish comfort, consistently delicious food and faultless service – and it offers good value too, for a hotel of this calibre. What’s not to love.”
Teach de Broc: “Teach de Broc is a luxuriously appointed and immaculately maintained modern guesthouse and restaurant located alongside Ballybunion Golf Course. Together with their sons Dermot and Cian, Aoife and Seamus Brock offer exceptional standards of comfort and all sorts of little extras at this deservedly popular guesthouse. This ethos of quality and generosity is carried through to their quietly impressive Strollers Bistro restaurant, which is open to non-residents and has become a destination in itself for its pleasing ambience, consistently good food and warmly professional service.”
QC’s Seafood Restaurant, Quinlan & Cooke Boutique Townhouse: “With its welcoming fire, striking modern zinc-topped bar and nautical antiques and pictures, Kate Cooke’s atmospheric bar and restaurant with rooms abounds with character. Very much part of the local community, QC’s Seafood Restaurant is known for its warmth and style as much as the good cooking and – thanks to the imaginative developments undertaken over the years by Kate and her late husband, Andrew – it is now equally sought out for its splendidly spacious and quirkily stylish townhouse accommodation.”
Castlewood House: “Run by Brian and Helen Heaton – who have both worked in some of Ireland’s finest hotels, and for whom nothing is too much trouble to ensure that their guests enjoy the very best of Irish hospitality – this famously luxurious purpose-built guesthouse is just five minutes’ walk west of Dingle Town.
For many repeat guests a particular speciality that keeps ‘em coming back is the superb breakfasts – a varied buffet display includes an outstandingly generous offering of fruits, juices, cheeses and charcuteries, for example, and the Baileys or Irish Mist porridge is legendary. Then there are pancakes, Dingle kippers, smoked salmon and scrambled egg and omelettes and more.”
