Driving around Ireland definitely makes you hungry—and sometimes forgetful—so after a day of touring around West Cork I arrived at The Fish Kitchen, a small-ish restaurant in Bantry situated, appropriately, above a fish market, without a reservation.
Call it the luck of the Irish, but proprietor Diarmaid Murphy managed to squeeze me and my friend in because of a cancellation.
Great luck, indeed, to grab a table in a place where they focus on three elements of serving fish: freshness, simplicity, and quality. Murphy says, “We do our best not to interfere with the fish, serving it simply skin side-up with a variety of simple butters or sauces on top or on the side … geographically we’re in an ideal location to keep the distance between the sea and the plate as short as possible,” an ethos not lost on the diners.
Here’s one of the standouts on the menu.
