Food & Drink
The food at Ballyvolane House is best described as country house style - generous, seasonal, and deeply rooted in place. Everything is meticulously prepared by our House Chef, who crafts daily menus featuring comforting roasts, fresh and saltwater fish, and game in season, all supported by home-grown vegetables and fruit from the walled garden.
We are fully committed to a Climate Conscious Food ethos - making thoughtful food choices with sustainability in mind. This means understanding where our food comes from, how it’s grown, and choosing options with the lowest possible carbon footprint. We consider not only packaging but also farming methods, production practices, and animal welfare.
Locally Sourced Slow Food
We try to use ingredients from here - from Ballyvolane’s walled-garden, farm, river, and the local area. Our rare-breed pigs are reared on the estate, and we’re fortunate to be in the heart of County Cork, surrounded by some of Ireland’s finest artisan food producers.
Our beef, lamb, and mutton come from Fitzgerald Butchers in Fermoy or from other reputable Irish producers. Fish and shellfish is supplied fresh from O’Connell’s Seafood in Cork’s English Market and from Ballycotton Seafood in Midleton. Pork products - our own rare-breed pork, bacon and black and white puddings - are sourced from Caherbeg Free Range Pork Ltd in Rosscarbery - sausages are from O’Flynn’s Gourmet Sausage Company. We serve artisan cheeses from across Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary (with the occasional gem from France), and smoked fish from the brilliant Frank Hederman.
From the Walled-Garden
Alistair who oversees the gardens, grows an astonishing variety of vegetables in the old walled garden - a true labour of love. You’ll find everything from sea kale, Tuscan kale, asparagus, and globe artichokes to heritage potatoes, salad leaves, spinach, courgettes, chard, cabbages, beetroot, and Jerusalem artichokes.
Seasonal fruit includes loganberries, figs, pears, apples, and raspberries, while the greenhouse produces cucumbers, chillies, and tomatoes. Our orchards are abundant each autumn, providing fruit for our own pressed apple juice and ingredients for gin infusions, including sloes, damsons, and crab apples.
Foraging and the Wild Larder
We are enthusiastic foragers, and much of what we serve is gathered from the estate and its surroundings. In spring and summer, you might find wild garlic, wood sorrel, lady’s smock, hairy bittercress, meadowsweet, and elderflower on the menu; in autumn, wild mushrooms, damsons, sloes, blackberries, and elderberries feature prominently.
From the nearby seashore, we gather rock samphire, sea rocket, and sea spinach when in season. Feathered and furred game, appear on the menu when the season allows.
Homemade Goodness
All our breads, pastries, and cakes are baked in-house. We make our own preserves and we also source them from Crossogue Preserves in Co. Tipperary.
Our menus change daily, shaped by the seasons, the weather, and what’s best from the garden or the river that day. We’re always happy to accommodate special dietary requirements, please let us know in advance. High tea and children’s menus are available for younger guests.
Dinner
Evenings at Ballyvolane House are wonderfully relaxed and sociable. Most evenings we serve a seasonal four-course tasting menu in the grand dining room, celebrating the best seasonal and local produce. This is served at 7:30pm and is €80 per person, and pre-booking is essential. We’re happy to cater for all dietary requirements, with prior notice.
Whether you prefer to join fellow guests for communal dining or enjoy a table to yourselves, dinner at Ballyvolane House is at the heart of the experience — a delicious ritual not to be missed.
On the evenings that we aren’t serving dinner, we are happy to assist our guests with dining recommendations.
View some sample dinner menus here (PDF) ›
Bertha's Revenge Gin - A Ballyvolane Story
Bertha’s Revenge Gin was born at Ballyvolane House and, for ten years, was distilled in small batches in our farmyard distillery. Named after Bertha, the world’s oldest cow, this award-winning gin combines Irish whey spirit, our own spring water and a carefully chosen mix of botanicals.
After a decade of creativity, triumphs, disasters, giggles and tears, the distillery at Ballyvolane closed and Bertha’s Revenge was sold to new owners.
The good news is that Bertha lives on. The brand will continue under new stewardship, and while Ballyvolane is no longer home to the distillery, our connection to Bertha remains very much alive.
Justin and Antony Jackson, who co-founded Bertha’s Revenge, have retained a small shareholding in the business, and Bertha cocktails continue to feature prominently at Ballyvolane - particularly as a pre-dinner tipple.
So this is not goodbye to Bertha. It is simply the beginning of her next chapter and we wish the new owners masses of success with her.
Wines & Cocktails
We offer an extensive and eclectic wine list, carefully curated to showcase high-quality wines from exceptional producers. Many are organic or biodynamic, and all have been chosen for the pleasure and character they bring to the table.
Cocktails are very much part of the Ballyvolane experience, and Bertha’s Revenge Gin remains at the heart of them.
In spring and summer, our signature serve is the Rhubarb Martini - using walled-garden rhubarb this is fresh, sharp and seasonal, with Bertha bringing its distinctive character.
As the year turns, we move to the Hedgerow Martini, our autumn and winter signature cocktail, uses Sloe Bertha, blackberries, elderflower cordial and lime juice and again built around Bertha.
They have become part of the rhythm of the house: something seasonal, local and a little bit celebratory, whether enjoyed before dinner, by the fire or out in the garden.
View our Red Wines here (PDF) ›
View our White Wines here (PDF) ›