Lucinda O’Sullivan’s restaurant review: While lunch in Cobh needed refining, dinner in Garryvoe demonstrated excellence

Keeping it nautical, our critic took in a giant cruise ship and two meals in Co Cork

Rear: Mediterranean Seabass, Roast Fennel, Baby Potatoes, Front: Lighthouse Creamy Seafood Chowder. The Lighthouse. Photo: Lucinda O'Sullivan

Lucinda O'Sullivan

‘Cobh is having a moment,” said my East Cork friend, Farmer Browne, as we drove past the fab five-star Fota Island Resort and Fota Wildlife Park, on over the bridge to the Great Island at the mouth of the River Lee, and past the restored Anglo-Norman tower of Belvelly Castle.

An evocative place of tragedies and triumph, Cobh was formerly known as Queenstown, a significant garrison town, and the last port of call for the ill-fated Titanic in 1912. Today, the town is a destination for cruise ships and those on the trail of both the Titanic and the Lusitania, which was sunk by a German U-boat during WWI.