Our critic enjoys a seasonal dining experience in this north county Dublin country house
The Dining Club at Whitestown House Estate in Naul, Co Dublin
Friday evening and the traffic heading north on the M50/M1 can only be described as brutal. Somewhere near Balbriggan, my designated driver, hereinafter to be known as Saint Katia, takes the exit which will bring us to Whitestown House, located a few fields across the north Co Dublin countryside from McNally Family Farm, the source of some of the ingredients for tonight’s dinner. An unhappy confluence of Google Maps, poor lighting on dark country roads and an easy-to-miss entrance means we are the last guests to arrive to the Samhain edition of The Dining Club.
Whitestown demesne dates back to the 17th century, with the current neat Georgian house built in the 1840s by Sandham Symes, chief architect to the Royal Dublin Society. Since the mid-1990s, it has been home to the Keogh family, with Hazel Keogh and her daughters Aoife and Kelly the trio – working with Kelly’s co-chef James Gabriel Martin of Leviathan – responsible for The Dining Club, a series of seasonal dinners aiming to revive the tradition of Irish country house hospitality. Kelly and James are both Ballymaloe alumni.