WoW! Bites: 'It's not about impressing your neighbours or a grand table setting'

In the competitive world of restaurants, the best of the best push boundaries of food storytelling by seeking ways to transform an ephemeral taste of place into a tactile experience for diners.

When we sit down to dine, food, although important, is a single element of the experience. The table we sit at, the glass we sip wine from, the cutlery we hold, and the crockery on which each dish is presented are all carefully chosen to enhance every aspect of the gastronomic meal.

These pieces are not just whimsical, but all part of a culinary vision that reflects a chef’s personality and sets a restaurant uniquely apart from others.

I have a life-long ion for crafted items that seamlessly blend form and function. This meeting of purpose – of craft and useability – is in perfect unison when designed with food in mind.

I once attended a spoon-carving workshop with a maker who creates beautifully tactile spoons from the branches of storm-felled trees. Spoons, he said, are the most useful of all utensils and the one we are most intimate with, considering how it as enters the mouth fully.

Pottery might not hold the same level of intimacy for the , but the organic nature of clay, glaze, fire and human touch are sublime vehicles for presenting the work of chefs who harness the organic materials of nature and wrangle them into delicious things for us to eat.

Nestled within seven acres of rewilded forest just outside the vibrant foodie West Cork village of Ballydehob is the pottery studio of Anke Barrett.

Anke’s ion for pottery came during a transitional time in her life.

Four of her five children had grown up and were starting lives of their own, and suddenly the house was quieter.

Quickly and unexpectedly, Anke developed her unique style of pottery inspired by the natural landscapes that surround her. Undulating and intentionally not quite perfect, Anke’s pieces are born instinctively and organically mimic the natural forms, shapes and hues of the rugged beauty and ever-changing colours of wild places.

On a sunny morning in March, Anke and I sit in the conservatory that encapsulates Anke’s studio and gallery. A noble-looking grapevine, which was already in fine fettle when she and her husband bought the house in 2008, snakes overhead, covered in leaves about to explode into a colossus of green as we talk about where it all began.

“I grew up in a town in northern Belgium close to the Dutch border and went to college in Antwerp. There was a big community of Irish there during the ’80s and ’90s; Irish pubs were thriving on the continent and the craic was great,” she recalls.

Curious by nature, Anke was fuelled by wanderlust and backpacked around the world, returning to Belgium in between to refill the finances before heading back out again.

Eventually, Anke met her husband, an Irishman, in Antwerp, and so emerged a shared wish to find a place to set down roots and live a permaculture life, growing and raising their own food and living off the land.

But by the time they found their dream home in Ballydehob in 2008, they had four children to mind with a fifth following soon after, which meant many of their plans were put on hold.

“Life got a little bit too busy, but we managed to plant 100 blueberry bushes in 2011,” says Anke. “Blueberries look after themselves, aren’t very labour-intensive and are well established after just a couple of years. We put up a big polytunnel, we had chickens and grew some easy veg.

“We’re lucky to be surrounded here by some great organic growers, like Lisheen Greens and Glensallagh Gardens.

“When this place came up, the connection was instant – this is the house I would have dreamed of as a kid. It was like I already knew this house! We had our dream house, our land, this beautiful grapevine and chickens. We were hell-bent on permaculture [living] because I am big into feeding my family healthy, organic, local food. But it took a lot of effort, and life took over.”

For 20 years, Anke devoted her life to raising her family, and homeschooling her children where she “created an environment for learning rather than a curriculum”. This approach to schooling was eventually turned onto her as, one by one, her four eldest children began leaving the nest she had lovingly and devotedly created for them.

“I got a little bit lost,” says Anke. “Everything I had done for 20 years was in the function of the family. It wasn’t worth my while to go to work because we had five kids and no family around us. I was here all the time organising and managing, but now what?”

Pottery had always been a ion of Anke’s. She appreciated the purposeful beauty of functional pots and tactile things to eat food from. But her college degree was in languages and communications, not fine art.

“I like colours, how they work together or not. Light has always been important for me, but I never thought of myself as an artist, nor having been artistically trained.

“It started with a couple of throwing lessons with a friend. I was interested in pottery, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it or even if it was possible to make anything because you need a kiln to make something durable.

“I can be a bit impatient, and the lessons weren’t going fast enough. I wasn’t so much bitten by the bug as eaten by it! I wanted to go further and faster, but then covid came and there were no more lessons.

“My imagination had gone wild, and very quickly I knew I needed a kiln.”

Anke embraced her natural curiosity once more and began experimenting with gusto, first with clay, then with glazes.

“After a while, I started to think of glazes out of a jar like opening a packet of soup. It’s grand and handy but it was too predictable, and I needed more!”

Rather than give in to her rapidly emptying nest, Anke’s ion for pottery grew and grew and she was eventually persuaded to take part in a local pop-up shop for Christmas one year. It was the right thing at the right time for taking the next step in her fledgling pottery business.

“I felt it would be good to hear what other people say [about my pottery] that aren’t my family or me! I realised I wasn’t imagining things; my pottery really is nice. It’s different, wonky and has a raw organic feel. It has to be not too perfect! I just let what happens happen. It’s very much driven by the gut. I put energy into it, but I can’t really explain how it’s achieved.”

It was at the pop-up that Rob Krawzyck and Elaine Fleming of Michelin-starred restaurant The Chestnut in Ballydehob came across Anke’s pottery.

Taken with its natural style, the duo asked Anke if she would make some pieces for the restaurant.

Over the years, pieces have been added to The Chestnut’s collection of Anke Barrett Pottery, but a few are particularly special - those made from wild clay.

“Elaine mentioned that there was a clay seam on her family farm in Co Meath. I thought that was amazing. It’s not the case that you can find wild clay everywhere; it’s not that simple, and there’s a lot of testing involved to see how to fire it. But I took some to see how it would work.

“I wanted to use the wild clay in its pure form, so I made small little side dishes for them. They looked lovely and were pure – just the clay; nothing added, nothing taken away. It’s a beautiful way to get a sense of place.”

Anke enjoys making pieces for The Chestnut, and word of their collaboration has spread, with interest coming in from other restaurants in Ireland and abroad. But, Anke says, she makes her decision case by case. For her, it’s not about the churn but about the craft and care with which she creates each individual piece.

“These are pieces of mine that go out there,” she says. “It’s fun working with restaurants if you’re appreciated, and I feel as though the relationship I have with The Chestnut makes the plates sing which makes the food sing.”

Although Anke’s pottery isn’t the preserve of fine dining restaurants, there is something of a sea change in what motivates people to invest in original pieces of functional pottery.

“A hand-built plate, particularly when you put food you have grown or made on it, has a sense that it was made mindfully. There is an energy that has gone into it,” says Anke.

“I have an open studio in the summer and often people visit after dining in The Chestnut and pick up a piece to take home with them. It’s so nice to see these pieces in someone’s home serving their food to people they love.

“It’s not about impressing your neighbours or a grand table setting, but it’s something that’s made - a little bit wonky, a little bit tactile, and to me it’s important that it’s not quite perfect, just to have it there. It’s a little bit about slowing down.”

Maybe people are becoming more engaged in slowing down and choosing things in a more conscious way. I think we all agree that the disposable nature of things simply must stop, eschewing the mass-produced for a piece of craft that is made with care, beautiful to look at, but absolutely made to be used.

“I don’t think it’s about just looks either. A piece is more than that, more than the sum of its parts. There’s an energy in each piece and then the simplest things, like a few leaves of lettuce or some freshly picked blueberries, can look amazing!”

Anke Barrett is a member of Cork Potters.

See Instagram @anke_amelia_pottery.