Accountant Audrey Byrne always wanted to be a chef, so she opened up a fine dining eatery in her Kildare period home
Price: €695,000
Agent: DNG Doyle (045) 874795
“I always wanted to be a chef but my parents had different ideas for me, so I ended up being an accountant,” says Audrey Byrne. “And early in 2020, I thought, you know, I just would love to cook.”
Seán and Audrey Byrne
There aren’t many home kitchens dishing out plates of pan-fried duck with cauliflower and almond purée, and warmed plum and ginger chutney on an average Saturday night. But at Audrey Byrne’s kitchen at her home, The Ranch at Monasterevin in Co Kildare, things have been somewhat different. In 2020, the accountant went against what might well have been her own practical advice to open a fine dining restaurant. In her home. It was an endeavour that proved as rewarding as it was exhausting, says Byrne.
The house itself provided the inspiration. “It came to me that you could create the sort of restaurant that you would like to go to yourself; a very small, intimate one. All candles and flowers and nice music and just really personal,” Byrne says. “And that’s what it became, a little personal restaurant in our dining room. We only sat 12 people, but after doing a six-week course at JP McMahon’s cookery school in Galway, I kind of thought, ‘Oh, God, I love creating dishes. So we opened a restaurant offering a seven-course tasting menu in our home.’”
The front door of The Ranch, Dublin Road, Monasterevin, Co Kildare
Audrey continued to work as an accountant Monday to Friday. She says: “I would finish Friday afternoon and cook for Saturday, and we used to open on Saturday nights only,” she says. The schedule was gruelling. “Come Sunday morning, I couldn’t get out of bed.”
It was very much a family affair: “My son Alex is an architect, and he used to serve the wine. We’d do wine-pairings with the food, and he used to help me pick the wines. And his fiancée Chloe was the waitress, and Seán, my husband, helped as well.”
The dining room of The Ranch, Dublin Road, Monasterevin, Co Kildare
Grooms at the Ranch, as their exclusive eatery was christened, became known in foodie circles for its intimacy and use of local ingredients. “There’s a woman who forages mushrooms up in Moore Abbey Woods which is beside us and I used to buy all my meat from Nolan’s in Athy. There’s an organic farm out in Portarlington, and I’d buy my veggies there. It was actually great fun sourcing stuff like that.”
This intimate setting led to memorable evenings. “A funny thing would happen. I’d go in and there’d be people from one table talking to people at another. People would talk across the restaurant. People made friends.” And this cross chat caused a reconfiguration of how diners were served. “I never liked the idea of one big table, so that’s how it happened organically in the restaurant.”
The master bedroom of The Ranch, Dublin Road, Monasterevin, Co Kildare
Audrey credits McMahon, known for his Michelin-starred Aniar restaurant in Galway city, with inspiring her culinary direction. “JP was wonderful. When I was doing the course, I actually would end up going and helping him out the following day with prep for the restaurant. And then after the next six-week course, I actually went down to help him.”
Being from Kildare, Byrne was aware of The Ranch before the couple bought it in 2019. She says: “We were just driving through and saw the sign and Sean said, ‘God, I always loved this house.’ and I said, ‘God, so did I.’ It was kind of meant to be. So I think within a week, I viewed it twice. We weren’t actively looking for a house, far from it. But we just loved it so much. So we just made it happen.”
The hallway of The Ranch, Dublin Road, Monasterevin, Co Kildare
Sean says: “Looking back, it feels like fate had some hand in the process. Had we not taken that particular route home, we would never have seen the sign. And yet we both announced how much we had always loved the house. My imagination never went beyond that car journey. Audrey, however, couldn’t resist. She contacted the agent, arranged a viewing, and then called me from the house.”
Audrey says: “All the windows are different. Every bedroom is different. Some have large windows, some of them have circular windows. It’s just lovely. And when we walked in, we could just see the potential of it, what we could do with it, because we’re both DIY-ers.”
The living room of The Ranch, Dublin Road, Monasterevin, Co Kildare
Its construction was commissioned in 1882 by Henry Moore, the 3rd Marquess and 8th Earl of Drogheda and designed by architect William Issaac Chambers. It was built as a Groom’s Cottage for the Moore Abbey estate.
“It had been rented for many years. And the way I would describe it was that it kind of was unloved,” says Audrey. “It’s a big six-bedroom house. Most of them had ensuites to maximise the rental income they were getting from it.
“We did it up from top to bottom, every floor, every bathroom, just put lots of love into it. You could feel it coming back to life.” In 2019, they installed a new roof, full insulation, complete rewiring, and modern touches like herringbone flooring and stylish en suites, all while preserving the original character.
The bathroom of The Ranch, Dublin Road, Monasterevin, Co Kildare
The entrance hall has high ceilings, a tiled floor, ornate coving and a stained glass feature window. The dining room has herringbone flooring, and a marble fireplace with cast iron inset. The drawing room has a cast iron fireplace and walnut flooring.
A large kitchen and breakfast area is at the heart of the house. This has a cast iron oil-fired stove, cherry oak cabinetry and granite worktops.
The kitchen of The Ranch, Dublin Road, Monasterevin, Co Kildare
From 2020 until early 2024, Grooms at the Ranch built a loyal following. But the pace eventually became unsustainable. “We had gotten so busy that we were soon doing private bookings. We had a wedding there as well. Eventually, I just couldn’t keep both going. I ended up crashing my car because I fell asleep at the wheel. So I had to decide one or the other. And I actually decided to quit the restaurant. It was the right time as well, because we had a few years of great fun and our son was having our first grandchild. So it was organic. It was my dream. We met some lovely, lovely people. It wasn’t just a restaurant, it’s been our home.”
Next up for Audrey and Sean is an old cottage in Ballygarret, Co Wexford, which they have bought and are about to renovate. For now the pan fried duck is ‘off’.
DNG Doyle seeks €695,000.