Chilli Con Carne and the silent robotic serving assistant get the attention at The Barn
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| Chilli Con Carne |
Once upon a time, not so long ago, the Barn was a by-word for old fashioned courtesy, superb service and generous portions of well-cooked and presented food, with soft piano music in the background. If you wanted to contact it on online six or seven years ago, you’d find it almost impossible.
Then came Covid. For 40 years, The Barn has served dinner and Sunday lunch to the people of Cork. After Covid and huge slow-paced renovations, they decided for the first time ever, to open for breakfast, brunch and dinner.
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| The robotic assistant |
And the new generation was internet savvy and you could, and can, find out all you need to know about times and menus online. Order and pay by QR from your table (no cash, by the way).
And they also have a robot. Not quite a server but more an assistant that brings your dish to the table, and your server (human!) completes the task by taking the dish from the "robot" and placing it in front of you as before.
Automobiles roll in every morning of the week at 8.30am for the expansive Breakfast and Brunch menus and it continues all day long with enticing Lunch and (most recently) Evening offerings. The post-Covid formula proved an instant hit and that expanded carpark is often close to full during a typical day.
Breakfast is served until 11.30am. You may start with Granola or Porridge, lots of egg dishes available also, as well as the Full Barn.
Brunch runs from 8.30pm to 4.00pm and the offerings are along classic lines including Eggs Benedict and Eggs Royale and also pancakes and waffles along with tea and coffee of course, hot chocolate too.
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| The menu for the day is in magazine format, colourful and informative. This is just the egg dishes. |
The award-winning carvery runs from noon until 7.00pm and it is rather splendid with all kinds of meats, vegetables, and sauces available in generous quantities.
Our most recent visit saw CL choose the carvery. She picked the turkey (with stuffing) and, from quite a list, creamy cauliflower, mashed and roast potato and carrots. By the way, you have to go and get the carvery yourself, no robotic help.
But my main dish did come by robot. Five foot tall or so, it moves, smoothly and silently, up the aisles in a white trim, doesn’t say a word but stops right by your table. The "wired-up" server arrived, from a different direction, more or less simultaneously, and put my Chilli Con Carne on the table in front of me.
I didn't get a comment on the rpbot but our server told me earlier that my dish was very popular. They use an “authentic traditional recipe” with the best ground beef and beans and a choice of rice or chips or both.
On first bite, it seemed to be very spicy indeed but I soon got into the swing of things and found it very enjoyable overall. I had picked half rice and half fries; next time, I’ll go all rice as the chips were on the hard side.
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| Honeycomb Charlotte |
Not a carvery fan? No worries. You may choose from Salads, Burgers, Fish and Chips, Sandwiches, Pizza and Pasta dishes, with no shortage of sides. Look out for the Jack McCarthy Black Pudding Salad, with Roasted Walnuts, Boiled Egg, Baby Spinach & Home-made Bacon and Apple Jam.
And, after all that, you have about ten desserts to choose from! We did choose one (for sharing), the sweeter than sweet Honeycomb Charlotte, white chocolate, fresh cream and honeycomb, decorated with silky caramel and honeycomb.
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| An all-weather extension (retractable roof) with views over the fields towards Glanmire |
The Barn's restaurant space is huge, up to 300 covers. There is an large outdoor dining area which is enclosed, by glass, in winter (with expansive views of the nearby countryside). Plenty of life inside here in the Barn, people talking, servers constantly moving, perhaps not as much as before thanks to their silent assistant! You may also see examples of this new tech in the Briar Rose and the Marina Market.
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