2009 Award Winners NATURAL FOOD AWARD 2009

Rathmullan House

A pleasing dining room overlooking the lovely gardens and Lough Swilly provides a fine setting for upbeat traditional cooking at the Wheeler family’s Rathmullan House. Menus are based on the very best of local and artisan foods – and, working closely with organic gardener, Dennis Hawke, chef Ian Orr creates dishes around fresh produce from their own restored walled garden; anyone with so much as a passing interest in good food or gardening should make a point of slipping through the gate at the back of the car park to spend some time here, as this highly productive garden is immaculately maintained and a joy to visit.

Menus include beautifully conceived dishes based on wild and naturally produced foods, including specialities like home-smoked Silverhill duck breast, fillet of North Atlantic halibut (served with handmade crab ravioli, perhaps), a fine farmhouse cheese selection and an ever-present seasonal compôte of garden fruits with carrageen pudding.

Another particularly attractive feature of Rathmullan is the Children’s Menu - a proper little person’s version of the adult menu, with lots of choices and no concessions to ‘popular’ fare, this is education on a plate.

And the impeccably sourced wine list includes half a dozen organic & bio-dynamic wines, too; all this plus caring service and a beautiful location... natural food comes so easily here, it is hard to imagine anything else.