Born: August 3rd, 1962
Died: October 5th, 2026
Corinna Hardgrave, restaurant critic at The Irish Times since 2020, has died at the age of 64. Known for her astute palate, elegant writing style and attention to detail, she was hugely respected, if perhaps sometimes feared, by chefs and restaurant owners. She also wrote informative and lively travel pieces for the paper.
She won the Irish Food Writing Awards Restaurant Writing prize a record three times, in 2021, 2024 and 2025. While never shy to voice her opinion on a poorly cooked piece of fish or (heaven forbid) the use of truffle oil, she cared deeply about the hospitality industry and how it treated its workers.
She championed Irish produce relentlessly, and her last column for this paper revealed that Sole Restaurant on Drury Street, Dublin, was serving non-free-range Polish and Dutch chicken. This was an embarrassing revelation for the restaurant’s co-owner Larry Murrin, Chairman of Bord Bia, an organisation dedicated to the promotion of Irish produce.
Hardgrave’s first published piece in The Irish Times was an account of a meal in Ferran Adria’s restaurant El Bulli in 2006, the second year of a record five times that it was voted best restaurant in the world.
More than one million people had applied for just a few thousand dining spaces, so after an initial rejection, she convinced her husband Steve to write to the restaurant in Spanish expressing their deep sadness and disappointment and requesting a copy of the El Bulli cookbook at a cost of several hundred euro. A few weeks later, they were offered a cancellation slot.
Family holidays were always planned around restaurants, both fine dining and more humble spots serving local food. Hardgrave adored restaurants and eating out, but these meals were also seen as important training for her palate and for developing her culinary knowledge.
Despite her love of fine dining, however, her favourite meal was sitting outdoors at a picnic table having the twin lobster and steamed clams dinner served at the Muscongus Bay Lobster shack in coastal Maine, not far from where her husband spent his childhood summers – a meal that costs about $25 and to which you bring your own wine.
Corinna Hardgrave was born in Bagenalstown (Muine Beag), Co Carlow, in August 1962, to Carmel (née Kelly) and Peter Dunne. The family moved to Templeogue in Dublin, where she attended national school and for secondary school attended Presentation College Terenure.
Her love of food and cooking can be traced to time spent in the kitchen with her mother and Aunt Jo, who was a passionate cook and gave Hardgrave a lifelong love of baking. In her early teenage years she took to collecting menus from every restaurant she visited, however humble.
Following her Leaving Cert, Hardgrave worked at Guinness for some years before moving to Bahrain to work as a flight attendant for Gulf Air. Serving first-class passengers with the airline led to a lifelong love of caviar and champagne, whenever she could afford them.
Once her contract with Gulf Air ended, she remained in Bahrain working for a promotions and marketing agency while also selling her paintings of flowers through a local gallery.
Arriving back in Dublin in 1990, she attended NCAD for a year before returning to work in PR and marketing agencies. In 1997 in the Horseshoe Bar of the Shelbourne, she met her husband-to-be Steve Hardgrave, a former US Navy pilot. She was about to leave Ireland to work for Nestlé in the UK, but eventually Steve moved there too, and they married in 1999, moving back to Ireland the following year. She gave birth to Katherine in 2000 and to Isabelle a year and a half later.
In 2005, Corinna Hardgrave began contributing to eGullet, the internet’s most influential food discussion forum at that time. Contributors included Anthony Bourdain and many other well-known names. In 2007 she was appointed as moderator of the “cooking” and “UK & Ireland” forums, where she regularly had to put manners on some of these islands’ best known food writers.
In 2008 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent extensive chemotherapy, eventually returning to full health.
By this time she was an established food writer, writing on food and wine for Irish Tatler magazine. In 2011 she began writing food features for The Sunday Times at the invitation of Ernie Whalley, who became a close friend and mentor, and who also died earlier this year. In 2012, she was invited to join the Irish Food Writers’ Guild.
Hardgrave had occasionally written about wine, but decided to take the subject more seriously, enrolling for and quickly passing a Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) diploma. Soon she became The Irish Independent wine columnist in 2017, giving her opportunities to travel around Europe and to New Zealand, Australia, California and South Africa.
In 2020 she moved to The Irish Times as restaurant critic. It was a dream job but the timing couldn’t have been worse, with all restaurants having to close due to the pandemic. Those early columns focused on food boxes and occasionally on outdoor dining spots.
Her deep knowledge of the restaurant world, finely honed palate and sheer love of dining out made her columns authoritative and rigorous, but above all joyful to read. She never forgot her duty to her readers and was unafraid to call out bad value, service or food.
She had a knack for remaining undercover during her reviews, only occasionally being spotted. Her technique was to book under a pseudonym and dress a little less glamorously than she might ordinarily.
Her detailed questions to chefs and owners about sourcing were not always welcome, but she persisted, digging into evasive answers with follow-up questions. It could take several phone calls and emails to get the information she needed, always insisting on replies in writing.
[ Corinna Hardgrave’s 2025 food awards, including her restaurant of the yearOpens in new window ]
Following Hardgrave’s death, many younger food writers whom she advised have paid tribute. She also gave advice and reassurance to many people with cancer, as acknowledged by many survivors. .
Though her illness returned recently, she never missed a column and her taste buds were unaffected.
While she was a highly successful writer, her family was always her top priority. On September 12th, she attended the marriage of her daughter Katherine to David Nugent. Photos from the day show her beaming with pride and happiness.
Despite the illness, her death was sudden and unexpected. She will be deeply missed by the Irish food world and by her thousands of readers.
Corinna Hardgrave is survived by her husband Steve, daughters Katherine and Isabelle, her mother Carmel, sister Olive, brothers Liam and Pat, son-in-law David and nieces and nephews.