Reviews for the Farmgate Café

The Irish Exam­iner – Joe McNamee – August 2020

1 Aug 2020

Were it not for the masks of the ever atten­tive staff, or the greater dis­tance they now keep while still per­fectly exe­cut­ing their roles, you’d be inclined to for­get entirely that strange, sur­real under­cur­rent of dis­qui­etude that seems such a com­mon hall­mark of din­ing out in a world of coro­n­avirus but even those even­tu­ally become part of the new normality.

I’ve said writ­ten and said before that, on a given day, The Far­m­gate can be my most favourite place to dine in the world. Today, it is an espe­cially com­fort­ing treat, a trea­sured link to another, less fraught time.

Read the full review in The Irish Exam­iner.

Sun­day Times 100 best restau­rants 2020

26 Jan 2020

Rebecca Harte’s culi­nary cura­tion in Cork’s ven­er­a­ble Far­m­gate Café acts as a prism, dis­pers­ing new light on how you see a dish of stout rarebit, or tripe and onions with drisheen or cot­tage pie, or cod with kale. Ever since Rebecca’s mother, Kay, first opened the café – up the stairs above Cork’s Eng­lish Mar­ket — peo­ple have sug­gested that Far­m­gate food is some sort of his­tor­i­cal re-​enactment, but this is wrong. The fact is that Far­m­gate food is age­less, and Rebecca has sim­ply shone a sharp new light on the glory that is steamed Lady’s Bridge pota­toes, and the purity of a crunchy, white soda bread, and the ele­men­tal love­li­ness of Oys­ter­haven oys­ters. Great staff, great value.