Ballyknocken 10 Years On

How time flies! Catherine Fulvio’s Ballyknocken Cookery School celebrates it’s FIRST DECADE…

This year Catherine Fulvio celebrates 10 years of Ballyknocken Cookery School and with it comes a host of celebratory courses and special offers which will capture the highlights from the kitchen at Ballyknocken over the past ten years.

“How time flies when you are having fun”, remarks Catherine who opened the cookery school after endless questions and queries on how to make this and how to make that from the delights served in Ballyknocken House, a four star farmhouse bed and breakfast on a 350 acre working farm.

In the past ten years Catherine and her team of expert tutors have welcomed over 20,000 keen cooks from all over the world into the kitchen at Ballyknocken Cookery School in Wicklow, which is only 45 minutes south of Dublin City.

Fulvio has worked in the tourism industry for over two decades and admits she inherited much of her cooking and hospitality skills from her mother, who opened Ballyknocken House as one of Ireland’s first farmhouse guesthouses in the late 1960s. Having formally trained prior to the opening of the Ballyknocken Cookery School 10 years ago, Catherine feels that she has found her niche as a cookery teacher. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge and love of food with adults and children alike.

The cookery school, which Catherine and her husband converted from an old milking parlour into a purpose built cookery school , opened its doors in 2004, at the start of what has become a food revolution in Ireland. Catherine has become synonymous with that food revolution and is seen as a culinary ambassador for Ireland. Her cooking style, Irish with a twist (often Italian!), epitomises the “farm to fork” ethos. What she cannot get from her own farm is sourced locally from farmers and speciality food producers.

The future is bright at Ballyknocken Cookery School

To celebrate 10 years of cooking and course development Catherine will be adding some great new classes and re-introducing so old reliables in the coming months. Choose from the ever popular 771 – seven nights, seven meals one plan, or Catherine’s Southern Italian to Head Chef Junior Chef which gets adults and children working together in the kitchen.  Ballyknocken will also be hosting a 10 of the Best Cookery Class focussing on the 10 most popular dishes from the past decade.

The cookery school has played host to a wide variety of events and activities from product launches, photoshoots and filming, to intimate family celebrations, hen and stag parties to corporate team building events and company summer BBQs. Ballyknocken can cater for crowds of 20 to 200; and both the cookery school and adjacent converted barns can be adapted to suit almost any occasion with ease and charm.

A labour of love to the Catherine, her family and her team, are looking forward with energy and enthusiasm to the next ten years. And the next generation are already standing in the wings ready to help!

Also worth noting are the gardens in Ballyknocken which Catherine has extended year on year with a flourishing herb garden and very healthy large vegetable patch – see below:

There is an extensive herb garden, vegetable plot and soft fruit orchard which she is continuously developing and expanding.  We provide a lot of produce from the garden for the school and work with Wendy Nairn on the fruit and veg side of things.  Also very important to Catherine is the flowers in the garden, and she works closely with Orlaith on the flowers for a bee friendly garden… feed the bees and you will feed yourself.  It all helps towards not only a lovely garden but also a health vegetable patch and good crop of apples!