ABOUT US
- Land to Sea
What is in a name?
The Dingle Peninsula is one of the few places in Ireland where one can stand atop a hill, look all
around, and take in the origins of an entire restaurant menu. From mountain lamb and grass-fed
beef to locally landed fish, farmed mollusks, and vegetables from the sandy Maharees, Dingle
and our sister Iveragh peninsula offer up ingredients for the bulk of our menu.
Where required we have gone further afield to source impeccable produce from other parts of
Ireland – our pork, for example, comes from the Crowe family farm in County Tipperary.
Thus, our name – Land to Sea. Wherever you are on the beautiful Dingle Peninsula, stop, look
around and know that the soil upon which you trod and the surf upon which you gaze have
yielded ingredients which will be transformed in our kitchen and served to you in our
comfortable, John Street dining room.
Who are we?
Neither Chef/Owner Julian Wyatt nor his wife and co-conspirator, Katia are originally from
Dingle. Julian is English-born to a Cork family and Katia is from Italian and French parentage.
When the couple met in France, neither spoke the other’s languages. Dogged persistence aided
by drawings, gestures and a translation dictionary guided them through their early days of
friendship cum romance.
The couple have lived and worked in West Kerry for a number of years, all the while looking for
a place for Julian’s vision and passion to bring modern culinary sensibility to traditional, highest-
quality, Irish ingredients.
You may see their young son, Seán, about the place from time to time as well. He’s too young
for kitchen work, but one is never too young (or old) to experience the warm glow of Julian and
Katia’s unique brand of European-influenced hospitality in cozy, Irish surrounds.
What is “Modern Irish” Cuisine?
In Chef Julian’s interpretation, the often used (and seldom defined) term “Modern Irish Cuisine” has
one foot in our agrarian past and the other in the realm of possibility.
Using good, honest produce which might have been found in our grandmothers’ or great-
grandmothers’ kitchens, Julian uses a nuanced hand to coax rich, exciting flavours appropriate to
modern taste. In-house curing and smoking, as well as pickling and fermenting are just some of
the techniques resurrected from Ireland’s past and updated with contemporary sensibility.
Influenced by the finesse of European cookery but rooted in Irish traditions, our take on food is
based in the belief that everyone should be afforded the opportunity to experience foods grown,
international repute.
That’s what we mean by Modern Irish.
Trevis Gleason ( Food writer and critic )
