Stella Maris Dining Media Reviews

“...The food chimes with the rich understatement of everything in the hotel, making this one of the very best get-me-away-from-the- sub-prime-debacle-please! retreats. We have described Ballycastle as San Sebastian-in-waiting, for it is a place rich in charm, arty and Stella Maris is your base at the centre of it all.”
–Bridgestone Guide’s Top 100 Places to Stay in Ireland, 2008

“A simple, comfortable inn with a wonderful 100-ft conservatory running the full length of the house and overlooking the sea. Top place to ponder, read the papers, have a drink or afternoon tea. The bedrooms are equally cosy, and almost all have sea views and a careful selection of antiques. It is all very understated, very comfortable. Lovely bar and sitting room downstairs, although it is hard to stay out of the conservatory. Frances Kelly had worked in the catering industry for years in the U.S. but spent a year at a culinary institute to perfect her cooking before opening the hotel. ‘I wanted to make sure I had all the basics right - good stocks, for instance, which are so important, and baking techniques.’ She was clearly a good student and the food at Stella Maris is impeccable. Good home cooking with local fish, lamb and poultry served with great charm and gusto by young students from Ballycastle. Perfect breakfast the next morning including French toast laced with cinnamon, and the best porridge you will find. It’s a place that merits far more than an overnight and beware: you’ll find it hard to point yourselves back in an urban direction.”
–The Irish Times, 2007

“Stella Maris is not just one of the stars of the county, it is one of the stars of the entire country…It is demure in style, and the cooking at dinner and breakfast is amongst the very finest in the entire country…Perfect dinner, perfect breakfast, perfect everything and, amidst all the perfection, there was a tiramisu that was nothing other then magic. Star of the sea? Stella Maris is star of the country!”
–Bridgestone Guide’s Top 100 Places to Stay in Ireland, 2007

“I cannot recall staying in a hotel as close to the sea. All you hear is wind and waves,’ says the nominator of this converted 19th-century coastguard station at the end of a cul-de-sac in north Mayo. It was bought…as a near ruin by Frances Kelly, a local who has lived in the United States, and her American husband, Terence McSweeney. Their ‘most inspired idea’ was to build a hundred-foot conservatory along the front of the building: it has ‘uninterrupted views to Downpatrick Head’. They are ‘convivial hosts’. He ‘dispenses drinks and conversation with laid-back ease’, she is ‘an accomplished cook: first-class beef, lamb and fish, all locally sourced…The wine list is a model of what a short list should be…The local terrain is ‘hauntingly beautiful’.”
–The Good Hotel Guide, 2007

“How often do you get perfect cooking, with every dish? Not very often, but that’s what we got at Stella. Every single dish we ate on a recent family visit to Stella Maris was perfect in every detail. Not fussy perfect, or pretentious perfect, or obsessive perfect. Just perfect in and of itself…Breakfast the next morning was just as perfect…It seems invidious, then, to say…so perfect as to be beyond perfect, but that’s just what they were…And they great thing about Frances Kelly’s cooking is that it is all done with so much understatement, in a house of wonderful restraint. Modest perfection. Demure perfection. So rare in brash modern Ireland, and all the more welcome because of that.”
–Bridgestone Guide’s Top 100 Restaurants in Ireland, 2007

“A very special small hotel restored by proprietors Terence McSweeney and Frances Kelly, who have created a warm and stylish interior where antiques rub shoulders with contemporary pieces. There’s a major emphasis on comfort throughout public areas, including a cosy bar...Dinner—cooked under Frances’ direct supervision—is a very enjoyable experience, based on local ingredients as far as possible...Residents also have a treat in store each morning as the Stella Maris breakfast is worth lingering over...perfect hot food cooked to order, be it a traditional Irish or specials like creamy scrambled eggs with smoked salmon.”
–Georgina Campbell’s Ireland: The Best of the Best, 2006

“Stella Maris changed our mind about County Mayo...Stella Maris seemed to say: enjoy the tactile pleasures of this place whilst we look after you. Now maybe it was because they looked after us so well that we had a rethinking about Mayo, which we had always heretofore regarded as being full of unexplored potential. But in Stella Maris, the potential for pleasure is fully explored, thanks to Ms. Kelly’s smashing cooking...and laid back hospitality. The food reads simply...but eats true and tasty, well conceived and cooked, the right food in the right place.”
–John & Sally McKenna, Bridgestone 100 Best Places to Stay in Ireland 2006

“As afternoon fades into evening, we make our way to our lodgings, the Stella Maris Country House Hotel, just west of town. A meticulously restored Victorian Coast Guard station, its 100-foot long conservatory enjoys great views of Bunatrahir Bay and Downpatrick Head, and its 12 rooms are comfortable and relaxing...Frances Kelly , a Ballycastle native, is a fabulous chef whose modern Irish dinner specialties include roast salmon and locally raised rack of lamb served with home-grown organic potatoes, salad greens and vegetables. Her beautifully presented breakfasts feature home-baked breads, rich, cinnamon-laced French toast, as well as traditional “full Irish” breakfasts...Stella Maris Country House Hotel, serene and comfortable 19th century hotel, with great views, terrific food with a superb breakfast...Frances Kelly’s dinners feature local lamb, poultry and seafood, home-grown, mostly organic vegetables, delicious desserts, excellent wine list.”
–Boston Globe, 2005