![\"Rob](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5197594_10_articleinlinemobile_Rob_26_Elaine_Image_two_.jpg\" "\\"Rob")
Rob and Elaine outside Restaurant Chestnut\u00a0<\/p>\nOne dark, cold, and foggy evening in March 2018, I set out to join friends for dinner at the \u2018soft\u2019 opening of a new restaurant in Ballydehob. Several hours later, I walked back out into the night, consumed with thoughts of the extraordinary meal just eaten and swearing to myself that this restaurant would have a Michelin star within two to three years.<\/p>\n
I was wrong. It took just six months.<\/p>\n
It was a rise so rapid that it caught the Irish food world completely off guard. It even stunned the owners, chef Rob Krawczyk and his partner Elaine Fleming. Since then, Michelin-starred Restaurant Chestnut has flourished, with Rob\u2019s exquisite cooking, a hyper-local homage to the superb produce of their hinterland, and Elaine\u2019s deceptively serene management of the restaurant only enhancing the tranquility of the space. A national treasure, it is beloved in its West Cork heartland, most of all in Ballydehob. Having weathered covid, Restaurant Chestnut seemed set for a long and prosperous future. And then, Rob and Elaine announced they would be closing Chestnut for good this October.<\/p>\n
Rob grew up just west of Chestnut, in Dereenatra, near Schull, and after school, went to the College of Art and Design in D\u00fan Laoghaire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI studied special FX for TV and film,\u201d says Rob. \u201cI was always making things when I was young, not just art. After college I ended up in an architect\u2019s office making models.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rob and Elaine outside Restaurant Chestnut\u00a0<\/p>\n
He enjoyed the work but it wasn\u2019t a passion.<\/p>\n
When the Celtic Tiger collapsed and work in construction dried up, his parents suggested he turn to food. It was a natural enough move: His parents had always grown their own vegetables and cooked, and for a time ran a small restaurant, The Barn, from their home. His father, Frank Krawczyk, asked renowned London-based Irish chef Richard Corrigan if there might be anything for Rob in his famous Bentley\u2019s seafood restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just loved it,\u201d says Rob. \u201cThere were a couple of Irish guys and we got on well and worked hard and I really enjoyed it. It all pushed on from there: it gets easier to get into another good restaurant if you\u2019ve already worked in one, and Bentley\u2019s got me started.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subsequent roles included a stage at the legendary Chez Panisse, in California, and he was part of the original team that earned a Michelin star for House Restaurant in the Cliff House in Ardmore: \u201cIt was hard, we pushed every day \u2014 and you learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chop House, in Lismore, was Rob\u2019s first head chef role.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really enjoyed that, it was much more rustic in its menus, and we earned a Michelin Bib,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really got into charcuterie. [Owner] Justin [Green] had bought a smoker which was still sitting in its box, so I asked my dad to teach me salami making, tapping into my heritage and going beyond what I\u2019d done up to then in the kitchen. We used to get in whole pigs to break them down and that was a really good learning experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though it received rave reviews and prospered for several years, the rural location eventually put paid to The Chop House. Driving North for a potential job, an industry contact suggested he check out an executive chef role in Tankardstown House, in Co Meath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took a detour,\u201d says Rob. \u201cIt was a Monday, really wet and miserable, but I got a good feeling talking to the owner and accepted. And that\u2019s where I met Elaine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elaine Fleming grew up in Co Meath, studying design in Dublin before going on to Galway to do a master\u2019s in textiles. She worked in art and visual merchandising but, needing a full-time role, applied to Tankardstown House, near her family home, and wound up as a wedding co-ordinator for over five years.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn our first date, Rob shared his dream of having a restaurant and I\u2019d always wanted to create a brand, to create an identity and it really was just like a perfect match. I see myself and Rob first and foremost as creatives,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
After three years working together, Rob left to gain some experience in Italy. He had also begun to reconnect with his West Cork roots. In a village that just a few years prior had served as the poster child for rural decline, they found a long-shuttered old pub: The Chestnut Tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just got a real nice feeling from the building,\u201d says Rob. \u201cWhen you step into the place, it\u2019s like stepping into a home. It had a lot of character. It\u2019s a 200-year-old pub, a beautiful bar in the front, little nooky rooms, we were charmed by it. We made business plans based on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a shoestring budget, they did most of the work themselves, paring it back to raw elements, making a virtue of necessity. Low wood-panelled ceilings were painted off-white, and bare walls a deep moss-green. When softly lit by night, it seems to have the vibrancy of a living organism and, seating just 18, the gentle tranquility of a culinary zen temple.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to do something that was really like inviting people into our home,\u201d says Elaine, \u201cthat was very important. We didn\u2019t want to have a big restaurant at all. We were probably not putting on our business hat in that respect but we just wanted a lovely place where people could come and eat really good food and feel comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201dFood-wise,\u201d says Rob, \u201cI always wanted to do things the right way. I was inspired mainly by West Cork, it has always had the most amazing produce. I just wanted to highlight that and use the growers, producers, farmers, fishermen and even potters.\u201d Over time, his sublime cooking has evolved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve simplified things. I think that\u2019s just natural progression. It\u2019s about the primary ingredients, the growers have done all the amazing work and we\u2019re just applying heat and arranging it on a plate. But, if it doesn\u2019t taste nice in the beginning, it doesn\u2019t matter what you do. You have to work very hard to make a horrible generic carrot taste nice, it\u2019s not really possible. So we use the best produce we possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Michelin star changes everything for a restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a complete shock,\u201d says Rob, \u201cI can\u2019t say we wouldn\u2019t have been looking for one at some point, but not five months after we opened. The Michelin inspector came in three weeks after we opened, and while you can\u2019t not think about the possibility of a star in the back of your head, that\u2019s really where it stayed until we got the email.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elaine continues: \u201cIt was the Friday before the Michelin Awards ceremony in London the following Monday. I was upstairs in the office. We knew other Irish chefs with stars had already received their invites a month before. Then I saw the email and called Rob upstairs without letting on to anyone else. [Looking fondly at her partner] When you saw it, you just couldn\u2019t get over it. Yeah, you were very emotional, it was really lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5197597_10_articleinlinemobile_dan_20mstar_203.jpg\" "\\"")
Chef Rob Krawczyk who was awarded a Michelin star for 2021 at his Chestnut Restaurant on Staball Hill, Ballydehob, west Cork. He has two previous awards for 2019 and 2020. Picture: Dan Linehan<\/p>\n
They booked flights and a hotel, and after finishing Sunday lunch service, Frank drove them to the airport. The following day, they headed to the ceremony.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe bumped into the guys from Mews Baltimore [where Ahmet Dede first earned a star] and Takashi Miyazaki,\u201d says Elaine, \u201cand none of us had told anyone \u2014 and, still, we had no idea exactly what it meant. When we went in, all the other Irish Michelin-starred chefs were congratulating us but we were still in the dark. Gordon Ramsay was presenting and they started announcing the first new stars and Ballydehob came up on the big screen \u2014 they always do location first and then the name of the restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still have the photo. We were like, oh my goodness, this is actually happening and Rob went up on stage and it was lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s a bit of a blur,\u201d says Rob. \u201cIt only begins to slowly sink in afterwards. And then it went mental. We had journalists onto us, my phone was erupting with messages. One of the Irish contingent had booked dinner for six and 22 wild Irish people turned up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elaine says: \u201cIt was so fun, but by the end we were exhausted and the next morning Rob had an 8am radio interview with Ian Dempsey, we\u2019d just got to bed a couple of hours before that. When we finally got back to Cork, bookings just went crazy, people were banging on windows and shouting through doors trying to get reservations.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a brand new business, getting on our feet, it put us on the culinary map and made us a destination dining spot. [The stars] showcased West Cork and made people travel down to us and we were already conscious of the distance from Cork, Dublin, and so on. That was the most wonderful part, getting to share everything we had created with people and to see their response. And to see our families so proud meant the most of all, the world to us.\u201d <\/p>\n
The following year saw the little country restaurant morph into one of the hottest tickets in the country. When the season eventually ended, they did overdue work on the building, then took off on holiday to recharge before reopening again in March on St Patrick\u2019s Day weekend. Then covid came calling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were still finding our feet because we literally got the star so quick,\u201d says Elaine. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a whole different level. We were hosting cookery classes just before opening. During the classes, there was talk of covid and we realised it was serious.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to navigate two years of covid was exceptionally challenging. Our aim was always to keep our team employed and everyone safe. It was tough, but we did it, trying to get through with grace and positivity, to lead by example but not knowing how long it was going to last.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were always very determined from day one to create something, and anything is possible as long as you work hard. And because we had achieved what we had so early on and saw the wonderful, positive impact it had, we weren\u2019t going to let that go.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is very apparent how solid the couple\u2019s bond is, both personally and professionally.<\/p>\n
\u201cOpening up this place together,\u201d says Rob, \u201cwe learned fairly quickly what our strengths and weaknesses are. But we also learned quite quickly how constantly supportive we are of each other and we make all decisions together, business and personal. It\u2019s lovely to be able to work together, but we have very strict rules that we don\u2019t take work home.\u201d<\/p>\n
So why call time now?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always best to leave the party when it\u2019s in full swing, as they say,\u201d says Elaine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve done something incredible,\u201d says Rob, \u201copening a small restaurant in a small rural village. There\u2019s immense pride here in what we\u2019ve created. Ballydehob is an incredible little town but I suppose we took a risk and it paid off. But in a Michelin star restaurant there is a level of intensity that you have to maintain. You work very long hours. Even though the restaurant may just be open four or five days a week, you\u2019re working six or seven and there\u2019s a whole team working for many hours beforehand to create that little three-hour dining experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are other things we want to try and this seemed like the right time to end this chapter. It\u2019s a positive thing, not negative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which begs the million-dollar question \u2014 what is that next project?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have decided not to tell anyone because we want to devote all that time to celebrating the team and what we have created to date,\u201d says Rob.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want the energy to be focused on Chestnut until the final day and not to be full of talk about what happens next.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll will be revealed about our next move before we close the door,\u201d Elaine promises. \u201cIt\u2019s been a great journey but it\u2019s not quite over yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One dark, cold, and foggy evening in March 2018, I set out to join friends for dinner at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[26054,18,117,19,2902,17],"class_list":["post-650700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-food-news","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-insight","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117139218355138521","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}