This new restaurant building is the centrepiece of our project in Abbeyliex, County Laois which includes four buildings in a unique landscape designed for chef Cúán Greene and his company Ómós, whose name is an Irish word meaning homage, duty and respect. The design sought to embody these sentiments and the broader ambition of the project to create an experience that is both forward looking and anchored to the cultural and material traditions of Ireland. 

The project began with an empty field bounded on two sides by stone walls and a slight slope towards the south giving the hint of a traditional walled garden.   The design built upon this suggestion to create a series of garden rooms for the growing of produce for the restaurant, each with a different atmosphere and climate.  These courtyards recall the ‘yards’ of the traditional farmhouse while anchoring the building views towards the  guesthouse to the east, to a ruined 18th century mill to the west, to the old mill pond to the north, and south across the expansive demesne of Abbeyleix House.

The building forms arise from a desire to follow the inherent logic of traditional construction methods carefully studied. Weather and weathering are embraced in materials that reveal their age while sheltering forms affect the flow of rainwater evolving the building’s character in time.   Wide shadowed eaves set the building into its landscape.

One’s experience of the building is to cross a stone walled threshold, leaving behind the profane everyday world and entering the sacred world of still spaces, layered textures, and thoughtful, remarkable food.

The building and landscape were designed in collaboration with interior designers ASCA and Relief Gallery and landscape architect Edward Shackleton.