Aoibheann greets everyone she encounters with a smile as we leave what she describes as the ‘more real’ corner of town for the beating heart of Galway, crossing the roiling River Corrib just before it joins the sea. On the far side is the Long Walk, a promenade of brightly coloured houses facing west towards the sunset. Here, too, is Ard Bia at Nimmos, Aoibheann’s restaurant and the first passion project of her trilogy. She launched Ard Bia in 2001 in Ardara in Donegal, after her return to Ireland from a year-long stint at Babington House, the Somerset hotel of the Soho House brand. She describes the group’s founder Nick Jones as ‘one of the most significant people in my life; he showed me – through his own incredible commitment – how it was possible to work for myself’.
The simple idea behind Ard Bia – in a town that has 10 pubs – was to provide a place where people could connect over a plate of good food: ‘There’s an emotional, ω transformative element to food.’ This is what she tapped into by serving wholesome, seasonal produce from local suppliers. After two years, drawn by the prospect of a ‘more culturally interesting life’, she made the move to Galway. Thus, Ard Bia was re-established in an ancient stone building on Galway’s ‘prom’. In her signature style, the doors and windows are painted bright red.
Now, 22 years on, Ard Bia is as popular as ever – a landmark in Galway’s culinary evolution that undoubtedly contributed to the area being chosen as European Region of Gastronomy in 2018. A young team, led by head chef Thomas Corrigan, works tirelessly across the restaurant’s two floors delivering breakfast, lunch and dinner to those lucky enough to secure a table. Aoibheann is often there, welcoming guests, curating exhibitions for the walls and ensuring that the restaurant’s sustainable practices – waste management, in particular – never slip.
Colourful houses along Galway’s Long Walk.
TARAN WILKHU
Downtime seems hard to come by, but Aoibheann has a remedy for this, one that she plans to share with others and one that forms the third part of her trilogy: a slow escape. An hour’s drive south of Galway lies the desolate, windswept reaches of the Burren – an extraordinary rolling, karst landscape, where a unique ecosystem of flowers and plants thrives among glacial-era limestone moulded into giant slabs of rock. It is desolate, even on a sunny day, but for Aoibheann, the Burren is ‘a place apart’, a place where, in rescuing a derelict 32-acre farmstead, she has forged a deep connection with nature and also discovered an immeasurable sense of peace.