Five years in the planning, Omós was the most hotly anticipated opening of 2026: the culmination of intensive research by executive chef and chief dreamer Cúán Greene who documented those dreams on his eponymous Omós substack since returning to Ireland from sharpening his knives and skills in some of Copenhagen’s hottest kitchens.
And a dreamy set up it is. A reimagined Victorian country house on the edge of John Collison's Abbeyleix House & Farm estate just outside handsome Abbeyleix village – already blessed with a picture-perfect pub-grocers, Morrisey’s of Abbeyleix, craft baker Mueller & O'Connell Bakery and deservedly popular restaurant Bramley – it set on 4.2 acres and has a custom-built restaurant overlooking ponds and kitchen gardens, and a fully open kitchen at its heart.
Here Cúán and team calmly construct and deliver a 12-course menu that draws from his travels as a chef and as a child living in France with his family, but also from his memories and experiences of Irish food and closely informed by the subtle shifts of Irish seasons.
The name Ómós – which means homage, duty, and respect – reflects the intention behind the project. There is something deeply nostalgic in the menu that he has dreamed up with Scottish head chef Matthew Smith (formerly Lignum in Galway, Inver in Scotland, Kadeau on Bornholm, and Restaurant AOC and Geranium in Copenhagen). Take the ‘Irish salad’, which appears about halfway through the opening season’s tasting menu (and will no doubt appear again and again, though it’s very much an Irish summer’s dish). A riff on the classic ‘Mammy salad’ consisting of hard-boiled egg, lettuce, tomatoes, beetroot, ham and the all-important salad cream, this reconfigures those elements as a tamago dofu (a cold savoury egg custard that manages to channel that distinctive salad cream flavour) dressed with seasonal treats like oyster leaf, basil leaf and raspberry and served with an intense roll of Curly Pig’s air-dried ham from a herd of Royal Mangalitsa pigs in County Fermanagh. It’s playful, evocative and - absolutely most importantly – very delicious in every different mouthful.
Another highlight is the potato course: a perfect serving of whatever potato is in season (Irish Gold second early, for example) steamed with lovage, topped with a Jersey milk butter and served with an onion and leek condiment. It evokes intimate home-dining flavours and feelings, like something any proud Irish mammy would be especially pleased to serve.
It comes just after a course of line-caught fish (mackerel maybe, dry-aged for four days) with a herby courgette sauce, tangy sea buckthorn foam and salty-spicy kumquat kosho garnish, and just before perfectly pitched course of ribeye beef with Kampot peppercorn sauce emboldened by flavours of chicken bone broth. A following course of heritage grain bread and cultured butter arrives just in time for mopping all the goodness.
For all the finger-licking flavour, there is plenty of theatre and visual appeal too, and an understanding that while this is a 12-course menu, people will arrive hungry and in need of a feed, albeit well-paced.
The very first course is pleasingly robust: a tomato pie to share for two, with a purple wheat pastry base encasing intense tomato flavours emboldened by anchovy and strawberries and topped with pretty flowers making it a feast for the eyes.
Next an exquisite bowl of Garryhinch shiitake mushroom jelly dressed with a pumpkin seed milk and slick of woodruff oil, both singing with their own distinctive flavours, and topped with broad beans that taste like they burst out of their pods ready to be in service.
Straddling the Irish salad, two more beauties. Before it, some dry-aged hamachi (yellowtail) rolled up with a magnolia paste inside bringing floral-raspberry notes and in a rhubarb-ponzu dressing with a piece of rhubarb served to squeeze over. After it, an earthy and textural soup dumpling of Cavan-raised snails channeling 1980’s Chicken Kiev flavours of garlic and butter with a rye-based dumpling dough maxing up the flavour.
The dessert courses are equally skilful fun. Hanging on a little branch, ‘Strawberry Tree’ is a play on the Arbutus unedo tree native to Ireland, and consists of a sea buckthorn and yoghurt parfait ‘strawberry’ with a candied pine cone in the centre as a final surprise. Next an ice-cream of Killadoon raw milk and sea salt with compressed berries and nasturtium and cherry blossom bringing complex notes of pepper and almonds. And finally a take on the beloved After Eight sliver of chocolate and mint sandwich, but in this case featuring Barebones chocolate and a seaweed butterscotch with toasted nori – the effect being nutty, toasty and salty-sweet.
Service is exceptionally warm yet polished, with that comforting feeling of knowing you’re in the most experienced and welcoming of hands. Wine service leans heavily to the natural side of things, should you wish to go there, but the list offers plenty for more classic palates too – and of course lots of options for deep pockets.
The result is a deeply considered expression of modern Irish gastronomy, one that is in no small part influenced by the international experience of its ambitious, well-travelled and highly skilled chefs – and yet is proudly keen to express that Irishness too. All of this plays out in a dining room that whose walls and tables are adorned with expressions of Irish craft and design in a way that underlines the philosophy of the intuitive cooking here. A unique experience that is well worth the five-year wait – and the considerable bill that dinner here will set you back.
Accommodation
As elsewhwre at Ómós, the accommodation conveys a wonderful sense of calm and reminders of Cúán's background - the son of artists Róisín de Buitléar and TerryGreene, he grew up surrounded by art and the Irish language. The distinctive rooms - ten in the mainhouse and six in the adjacent coachhouses - were designed by Ryan W. Kennihan Architects in collaboration with Asca and Relief Gallery, and feature a carefully curated art collection, along with with Irish-designed bed linen, handcrafted ceramics and Ómós bodycare. It is all very special and you can take some items home too, as a selection of Ómós items is available from a small shop, An SiopaBeag.
Breakfast is served in the main house and there is plenty to do afterwards in the house and grounds, or activities can be arranged - from foraging and wine tasting to a morning with the gardener, a swim in the lake, a bog walk, a sauna, or a chauffeur-driven journey into the countryside there is something for everyone. Snacks are available fthroughout the day and overnight guests can help themselves to tea or coffee by the fire downstairs at any time - and a stay here ends on a lovely note, with a personal thank-you letter and a reminder to stop in at Morrissey’s for a pint if you haven’t already been.
