It may be a little out of the way, but those in the know always find time to make a beeline for Peter Greany and Maeve Moore's lovely bright café near the railway station.
A member of the Taste of Kilkenny Food Trail (www.trailkilkenny.ie/food-trail), the focus at Foodworks is on local ingredients – and this really means local in their case, as much of the food served comes from the family farm on the outskirts of Kilkenny City, where they have a food production kitchen and smokery, grow vegetables and herbs in polytunnels and have also started rearing their own saddleback pigs.
Very neat and well-maintained, with outdoor seating to tempt customers in, you step from the street into a bright contemporary café-style restaurant with light flooding in from large floor to ceiling windows and simple, good quality settings on the plain polished tables.
But this place is all about the food, and once greeted and seated, iced water and menus quickly follow. Short, but well thought out (and frequently changed) the menu offers tempting choices and, ofcourse, local producers are given due recognition.
Everything is home cooked with care and appetisingly served on plain white plates...
Good things offered might begin with a bowl of very tasty minestrone soup with brown bread, maybe followed by a simple but perfectly executed main course of deep fried fillet of cod in beer batter, with seasonal accompaniments such as celeriac remoulade and peas in a cream sauce, and good chips. Other choices might include an imaginative pasta dish, or perhaps some of that delicious rare breed pork.
To finish, there will be lovely desserts such as strawberry Bakewell tart and a tart tatin - and excellent coffees too.
They’re busy from early morning serving breakfast and scones, through lunch time when they also offer a take away service as well as their very tasty food to eat in, and then in the afternoon they offer snacks and afternoon tea.
Service is excellent - knowledgeable staff are never to busy to answer questions about the menu correctly – and it’s good value for the quality and cooking skills too.
A small wine list is appropriate for a café and priced fairly, offering ten wine (5 red and 5 white), representing the major grape varieties.
A seriously good place to know about when visiting Kilkenny.
Mon-Sat 9am–5pm
