Chef Ruairí de Blacam - The Elementalist

Awarded the prestigious Michelin Green Star in January 2021, Inis Meáin Restaurant was founded in 2007 by chef and island native Ruairí de Blacam and design consultant Marie-Thérèse de Blacam. Long-time heroes of an ethical, sustainable and environmental ethos, the restaurant captures the indigenous flavours of Inis Meáin, the middle Aran island, overlooking Galway Bay and Connemara.

Under the ethos of 'Elemental Eating', chef Ruairí de Blacam brilliantly brings the essence of island life to the table - gathering his ingredients from the Atlantic's daily catch, whatever that may bring, homestead-reared meat, raiding just ripened trophies from his greenhouse, digging up the root veg and plucking their fruit plots. Being an islander, he feverishly forages from the wild. Food is not in a natural abundance being exposed to the Island's harsh climate - making food intensely more precious, harvesting what you can, and when. Headliners of lobster, urchins, crabs and fish share the table with the most delicious root vegetables - which flourish in Blacam's homemade natural seaweed fertiliser.

A successful professional chef for over twenty years, Ruairí worked all over the world, from Dublin to Italy, Germany and France, however, it was tiny Inis Meáin in Ireland where he started life as a child (He even remembers when each family had their own cow and there was no electricity – we do mean tiny).

Simplicity and restraint is the culinary mantra here, each of the four courses comprising of two main elements: periwinkle with wild garlic, scallop tartare with toasted hazelnut, oyster with shallot dressing, lobster with golden beet, john dory with baby carrot. 

Staging is also an essential aspect of elemental eating, and the 16 seater dining room's sweeping windows allow you to look unfettered upon land and sea. A foodie experience that allows you to truly get back to nature – and more than that, taste it in a way that you never have before - awaits you at Inis Meáin Restaurant and Suites with their famous Elemental Eating menu by Ruairí de Blacam.

Bookings well in advance, like the menu, are essential. The suites are booked well in advance; this is the sort of place that you need a degree of patience to enjoy - book and look forward to a memorable trip.

EDITOR'S JOURNAL EDIT

For more on all things truly foodie have a peek in our Travel Journal's fully stuffed Foodie Genre for the hottest racelette restaurants in the Alps to the best foodie fare in all of Austria - the legendary Taubenkobel. A foodie traveller's gastro world awaits.