It may be more than half a century ago and Declan Ryan may have entered his 82nd year now, but his recall is forensically accurate as he remembers that day in March 1974 when the Arbutus Lodge Hotel, the restaurant that he ran with his wife, Patsy, won Ireland’s first Michelin star.
“It made the front page of the London Times, but it only got a mention on page 8 of the Examiner – a paragraph down the story; Ted Crosbie [publisher] used to get a bit embarrassed about that because I used to slag him about it,” Mr Ryan said.
He had entered the culinary business when his parents, Sean and Mary, opened the Arbutus Lodge in Montenotte on Cork City’s northside in 1960 after they…