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Acrisp autumn day and we're on the way back to Dublin from Waterford. It's lunchtime and, despite having eaten very well at the Tannery in Dungarvan the previous evening, we think that we might just manage to squeeze in a visit to the Nicholas Mosse Café at Bennettsbridge. We have heard good things – this is where the good folk of Kilkenny head to put the world to rights over a spot of lunch outside the city. The salads are said to be worth the journey and, as we are in the mood for healthy food and lots of vegetables, it sounds as if it should do the trick.
Nicholas Mosse specialises in simple, functional pottery in the style of traditional Irish spongeware. A restored mill on the banks of the Nore at Bennettsbridge is home to a workshop where all of the pottery is made and decorated by hand. There's also a shop on two floors and a café that has a reputation as the Avoca of the southeast. It's a beautiful, bucolic spot, with photogenic swans and ducks on the river and some handsome, creamy-coloured cattle in the adjoining fields. Truth be told, it doesn't look very Irish at all. You could be in Hardy country.
Inside, the shop is a delight – somewhere that you could imagine ticking off a great many names from your Christmas present list. As well as the full range of Mosse's own pottery (and a seconds' area where savvy shoppers will pick up a few bargains), the shop is a treasure trove of beautiful things. The buyer has a good eye – the stock includes plenty of things that neither of us had seen anywhere else, from Missoni-like throws in cosy lambswool to elegant filigreed porcelain nightlight holders. There are candles and linens and soaps and stocking fillers and all manner of enticing things and prices are fair. I stock up on box after box of the hard-to-find Ball preserving jars from the US (they're the ones that Nigella uses so you can be assured that they are the most fashionable – just the thing for all those homemade edible gifts that we are all going to be making this year) before we head upstairs for lunch.
You order at the counter and the food is then brought to your table. The decor is simple, with one wall of the eating area given over to a fascinating display of antique and collectible Irish pottery. The offering is concise – with a soup, a few tarts and hot dishes and a good range of salads on the menu.
We both had a bowl of the butternut squash soup, served with excellent breads – a decadent cheese-and-garlic white and a traditional brown. The soup was terrific. From the individual tarts on offer that day, we chose the goats' cheese and red onion and the bacon and gruyere. The pastry was good, but the bacon and gruyere version was a tad bland – the goats' cheese version much more flavoursome. We checked out the famous salads – there are six or eight on offer and regulars come for their favourites. The potato salad pulled no punches as regards calorie count – we tried to stick to a mouthful or two but ended up being drawn back to it again and again. So much for our virtuous lunch. The broccoli, tomato and feta salad was good, as was the pea, mint and feta. Our favourite, though, was the grated carrot with ginger, coconut and raisins. Delicious – and something that we'll be trying to replicate at home. We took away a couple of puddings to eat later – an individual bakewell tart was good enough to make us regret having purchased only one but we weren't crazy about the chocolate biscuit cake – too soft, not chocolatey enough. We drank tap water and a couple of decent coffees and our bill came to €36.45 before service. I'd recommend a pre-Christmas visit to Bennettsbridge for a shopping experience that's a bit different and lunch that's more than fine.
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