2019 Award Winners OUTSTANDING GUEST EXPERIENCE 2019

Tig Congaile, Inis Meain, Co Galway

What makes a great hospitality experience? Ireland is blessed with a generous sprinkling of those uniquely satisfying places where beautiful and enriching surroundings combine with an owner who is exceptionally gifted in hospitality and conveys that gift to everyone and everything associated with the business.

Ireland’s offshore islands are keenly sought-after destinations these days, loved for their other worldliness and sense of continuity with an almost forgotten way of life – and they can offer some famous places to eat and stay in the tourism mix. But sometimes the simpler and longer-established places can provide an especially memorable experience. Sitting outside on a fine day, the peace and the view make Vilma and Padric Conneely’s Inis Meain restaurant and accommodation feel like the best spot on the island, for example. A pioneer of what has become the new food movement, Vilma (who worked in banking in California, met and married Padric, came back home with him and opened Tigh Congaile 1993) has always loved using organic and sea vegetables - long before it became popular. Her wonderful Sea Vegetable Soup is a speciality known well beyond the islands, and was a favourite of the late great Myrtle Allen, no less. Dinner here is really good and, even though less publicised than some of the restaurants on the islands, Vilma’s cooking is on a par with the best – and a stay here will linger long in the mind.