Sourcing ingredients locally is the secret of success for one Donegal restaurant that was faced with the stark choice of evolving or dying, writes GARY QUINN
I GREW UP ON the road to Inishowen in Co Donegal. Countless long journeys north across borders and checkpoints to my mother’s home place were repaid by that incredible view across Lough Swilly as the road sweeps down towards Buncrana.
That view still cheers me now, and it only takes a moment on the shorefront to get that unmistakable feeling of home – even though it isn’t really my home at all, or at least it wasn’t for very long. But when you forge an attachment to a place in childhood, it’s hard to break away.
There’s been a lot of rebranding since – “Donegal is different”; “Amazing Grace country”; “Malin Waters” – they all capture something special about this place. But it took the Bridgestone guide to uncover for me a brand that captures the essence of this rocky peninsula every single day: Harrys restaurant in Bridgend. According to the Bridgestone guide, Harrys “may have the most potent signature of any restaurant in Ireland . . . and is currently the most complete Wow! experience in Irish food.”
Harrys has a deceptively simple concept: everything it serves, from meat and game to fish, is sourced in Inishowen. There are no imports. The fish and shellfish come off boats that plough their way through Lough Swilly and Foyle, the meat is raised on organic farms that look out across rich green grass to the rest of Donegal and locals even bring game directly to the kitchen door.
I met Donal Doherty, who co-runs the family business his father started 20 years ago, on Twitter. Later, in real life, in his new walled garden where Doherty is cultivating fruit and vegetables for his kitchen, he laughs as he admits to being amazed at where his career has taken him.
Eight years ago he was working as an accountant for British Airways in London, happily avoiding the pull of home, when he agreed to look at the family books. He realised it was a case of evolve or die, he says. “If we paid everyone we owed the restaurant would be finished, so we had to come up with something different. I said I’d give it three months, and I’ve never looked back.”
And getting to try that “something different” was a revelation: who knew that there were Donegal squid and that they could taste that good? That the flavour of the sea could be so fresh or that a rhubarb and pear chutney would be such a perfect compliment to paté?
The dry-aged fillet steak really did melt in the mouth and the lime and ginger carrageen moss and the fruit tart to finish were incredible. The biggest surprise? The bill. Three courses of the best of the menu for two people for €67.
Offering better value is a big part of the plan. “We weren’t different enough from our competitors and we were all sourcing from the same suppliers of imports and packaged ingredients. We decided to go straight to producers instead and get them to select the best cuts of meat and buy directly from them,” says Doherty.
“We were getting frustrated with fishmongers who were offering imported farmed salmon and sea bass, so we went down to the boats and started buying whatever they were bringing in. It sounds simple, but in Ireland very few people are working like this.”
The customer needed a bit of training too, he explains. “We had to introduce them to new ingredients – new fish, for example. Gurnard was our best-selling fish last year, but a few years ago people hadn’t even heard of it. It was being thrown back or being used as lobster bait. Now people love it.
“We met free-range pig farmers and producers of organic saddleback pigs. Now we take a pig a week from them. Every year we try to add something new. It’s been a slow progression.”
The walled garden is the latest development. Situated on a beautiful 17-acre farm under the site of the ring fort of Grianán of Aileach, the garden covers some 1.5-plus acres. In its heyday it supplied vegetables to 10 different grocery stores in Derry all summer, but it has been derelict and overgrown for years.
Doherty and his team set about reclaiming it, and are currently using about half the available space. Apple trees hold one corner, and newly installed regiments of raised beds are full of growth, but Doherty is most passionate about the greenhouses and hot beds.
“There were five different greenhouses here, some of them Victorian and heated by furnaces and piping networks, and we’re slowly getting these back to work.
“Donegal has about a six-week shorter growing season than Cork, for example, because of the three degrees of temperature difference this far north. We want to be able to extend that season. Also, Donegal’s got plenty of root vegetables, potatoes and salads, but there’s little in-between. It’s the weakest part of our menu.
“Right now we’re getting the soil ready for planting asparagus, albino beetroot, purple kales, Tuscan kales for the winter, three different types of peas and beans. The idea is that this garden will produce all the things that we can’t source locally on Inishowen. And also to allow us to strengthen our menu: our vegetarian side, for example, because of limitations on what’s commercially available, is weak.”
His first crop of fruit was harvested three weeks ago and his eyes light up when he talks about it. “We have strawberries and raspberries coming out of here and you make a feature of it on the menu. Okay, the raspberries are only going to last a month, but you shout about it for a month.
“On the dessert menu you can start with rhubarb as far back as April, and the berries last to October. There’s no reason why six months of the year you can’t get berries or desserts from right here.”
They have 16 types of apple – eaters and bakers – and he has big plans for them this year but, in previous years, he says, they had simply rotted into the ground since no one knew what to do with them. Bringing this garden back to life captures an incredible resource and is a great example of how a region such as Inishowen can reinvent itself.
When a restaurant becomes a destination, everyone wins – accommodation providers, local producers, shops. It’s complicated, but it’s a huge prize, and one that Harrys is winning. Don’t forget to book.
See harrys.ie for more. You can follow Harrys on Twitter: @harrysdonal. Starters €5-€8, mains €12-€19