Page 156 - WDT MAGAZINE IRELAND ISSUE WINTER 2018

Jonathan Keane | Lodge at Ashford

Chef Jonathan Keane grows lettuces, chard, herbs and other produce in his row
houses built steps from his kitchen at The Lodge at Ashford Castle. The Lodge’s
verdant grounds stretch down to picturesque Lough Corrib.

n the morning, our journey north followed country rolling lawn down to Lough Corrib awaited us at the top
roads alongside the Wild Atlantic Way’s dramatic of the woods-lined driveway in The Lodge at Ashford
Ibays, cliffs and shores. By early afternoon, after a Castle. Built in the mid-19th century to house Ashford
brief stop in Cong, where we posed by a bronze statue Castle’s estate manager and turned into a hotel in 1939,
of John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara commemorating the Lodge is elegant and relaxed, minus the Castle’s
filming of “The Quiet Man” here, we pulled past stone starch and pomp.
gates into the magnificent 350-acre grounds of Ashford Nowhere is that more evident than in the two dining
Castle. rooms. Ashford Castle’s grand George V required jack-
The 800-year-old former home of the Guinness fam- ets for gentlemen who gather for its sumptuous five-
ily refurbished with loving attention to period detail and course dinner beneath Waterford crystal chandeliers.
modern amenities by the Red Carnation Hotel Collec- The Lodge’s intimate Wilde’s Restaurant is dress-code
tion five years ago was booked for a grand wedding. free for diners enjoying Chef Jonathan Keane’s “Local
But as luck would have it, a suite with a view over Food With Imagination.”

156 WDT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018