Preparing and serving food that has been grown in the shadow of a restored stone barn overlooking the windswept cliffs of an offshore island is a labour of love for US-born Ciara Cullen. Certainly, culinary creations such as beetroot borani, stuffed courgette flowers, fermented Jerusalem artichokes or wild garlic pesto, all washed down with a wine from a boutique French vineyard, did not feature on typical menus when she moved to the Co Mayo outpost of Clare Island in the 1980s. This outbuilding was still thatched when she first joined the late island elder and philosopher Michael Joe O’Malley to help run Macalla Farm.O’Malley, who died in 1988, had hosted a colourful caravan of visitors and volunteers over the years with his cottage door – in the village of Ballytoughy Mór and on the road to the lighthouse – always open, and his array of home-made meads and wines providing a perfect cocktail for communality and late night conversations. This open ethos impressed the young Cullen who had grown up in a very private family setting in Ohio so it was natural for her to carry it forward when she inherited the farm. It would inform the subsequent development of the yoga retreats she established in 2001 with her now ex-partner, Christophe Mouze. Indeed, it was the popularity of these retreats and the need to feed the participants and the many Wwoofers (volunteers through Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) that led to the genesis of the organic farm and ultimately the Stone Barn Café. It’s a hive of activity in one small part of the 4.8km by 8km island. “The importance of the food we served at these retreats was paramount for us – its quality, where it was to be sourced, how it would be prepared. Christophe and I were both vegetarian, and food enthusiasts – he is French after all. How the food was grown was equally important and in the beginning it was difficult to source organic, chemical-free produce in this part of Mayo. So we began growing it ourselves and had the great fortune of having experienced growers who volunteered or worked for us during the early years,” says Cullen. There was no distinction, she says, between what the couple ate with their children, Theo and Maude, and what they served to the students who came on their yoga retreats. “The project became much bigger than we ever envisaged as awareness grew of the reality of interrelatedness and connectedness between humans, non-humans and the planet. Thus, everything involved with the sowing, harvesting, composting, fermenting, preparing and then eating that which nourishes us is totally relevant,” says Cullen.By this stage, Cullen and Mouze had built a Scandinavian-style house with a yoga studio and renovated the cottage – where she had lived with Michael Joe – for guests, who are still welcomed today.“Then in 2006, we started renovating the stone barn, with no deadline and a vague idea to turn it into accommodation for volunteers at the farm. For the restoration, we used only natural materials – lime and hemp for the walls and limecrete for the floor. The result is a very comfortable and unique space that some old islanders reminisce about – familiar but transformed,” says Cullen. The Stone Barn Café on Clare Island uses produce grown on Macalla Farm. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd Ciara Cullen arrived on Clare Island in the 1980s. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd Ciara Cullen collects produce on her farm on Clare Island. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd Serendipitously, the island builders also happen to be musicians who play at pop-up cultural evenings in the Stone Barn. While the daytime cafe has opened for four days each week over the summer season since 2018, the five- and six-course vegetarian and vegan evening tasting menus (€55 for five courses) did not start until 2022.“We only opened then on Monday nights as we worried that it might be too radical. While there was never a question [but] that it would be vegetarian, we were uncertain if it would work with our neighbours and visitors.”Cullen says the response has been “very gratifying”, noting that she never intended to proselytise. “It is the quality, integrity and deliciousness of the food that matters.” One appreciative recent visitor was Ted Hegarty, originally from Skibbereen, Co Cork, but a long-time resident of Nottingham in England. He had visited the island on a day trip last summer with family and had happened upon the Stone Barn and stopped for lunch while on a walk to the Clare Island Lighthouse. When they returned for a longer visit at the beginning of July this year, they had already advance booked the Stone Barn for dinner. “Each course is presented so beautifully with such innovative dishes and served without the pomp which usually comes with food of this standard,” says Hegarty. “From the beautiful seeded sourdough bread to the delicate, yet complex flavours of the sauces and vegetables and that fabulous florentine with a grape sorbet, as well as the wine, we had such a great evening.”Hegarty, who has a keen interest in building, is also a fan of the stone structure.“It is a really smart barn conversion and sits perfectly in its small island setting,” he says.Maude Cullen-Mouze was Hegarty’s waiter on the night of his visit. A climate activist who, as a teenager in 2022, addressed the Joint Houses of the Oireachtas, she is home for the summer from Trinity College Dublin, where she has completed her first year studying for a degree in history and literature. “It’s the perfect summer job with lots of flexibility, free coffee and the chance to meet lots of interesting people,” says Cullen-Mouze. She is the chief baker and is up early in the mornings baking scones, muffins and cakes, including her French grandmother’s very simple chocolate mousse cake. Cullen-Mouze feels lucky “to work in a space that aligns with [her] personal ethos”. Ciara Cullen (right) and her daughter Maude Cullen-Mouze in the Stone Bake Café. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd Ciara Cullen: 'Our lunch menu is limited and made from scratch daily as we’re such a small operation. Photograph: Enda O''Dowd Charred green beans dish at the Stone Barn Café on Clare Island. Photograph:: Enda O'Dowd “I think it’s important to show that vegetarian food is delicious, simple and satisfying,” she says, also highlighting the support the restaurant gets from islanders. Most other customers are Irish, either from Mayo or further afield, she adds.“But of course, we get customers from all over, including many continental Europeans and, as I am half-French, it’s always a pleasant surprise for them to find a francophone on a tiny Irish island,” she smiles. [ High seas and unsafe piers force families to abandon west-coast island for school termOpens in new window ]There are challenges too. The unpredictable weather and the fact the island’s mainland harbour needs significant repair mean the Stone Barn season is relatively short. This is compounded by the fact that the family never knows for sure how busy the cafe will be during the day. “Thus our lunch menu is limited and made from scratch daily as we’re such a small operation. So, each morning I make the essential elements of our garden plate – grains, salads, hummus and other spreads – as well as the Macalla Farm sourdough bread: a very simple recipe requiring an initial long fermentation that I’ve developed over the years,” says Cullen. With her midwest American drawl still evident after four decades living in the wild, wild west of Ireland, Cullen’s characteristic drollery adds a lightness to her interactions with customers. Maude Cullen-Mouze in the Stone Barn Café. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd Ciara Cullen: 'We are growing on a tiny scale so it is really a challenge to be producing enough.' Photograph: Enda O'Dowd She confesses that it can occasionally be a little Fawlty Towers behind the scenes, with kitchen staff sometimes racing off to the polytunnel in the middle of service for more of those delicious passion fruit grapes, helda beans, basil or tomatoes, of which there are more than one dozen heritage varieties.“We once tried counting the number of different crops and stopped at 50. We do a lot of fermenting during the harvest – cabbage, of course, cucumbers, beans, carrots, beetroot and Jerusalem artichokes amongst our favourites. Each year I also preserve a big part of the tomato crop by canning it. Last year I nearly had 75kg.” [ The rural Dublin family farm where the best chefs in Ireland source their produceOpens in new window ]However, from a practical perspective, this past year has been “a very difficult growing year because it was extremely cold and extremely windy at times”. “Even though we planted a lot of shelter belts in the beginning to provide windbreaks, there is the extreme exposure, the salt carried by the wind from the ocean. We are growing on a tiny scale so it is really a challenge to be producing enough. You have to be very patient to wait for things to be ready. The menu is dealing with scarcity and abundance. Take last night’s menu: the beetroot was from last year’s harvest that I stored in sand, so it has come to the end, so I’m waiting fro this year’s beetroot to be ready. Then, on the night before I used the very last of my butternut squash from the previous year. They were stored in the house on the windowsill; they were like part of the family,” she says, laughing.Cullen stresses that she is “grateful to have received certification recently under the Organic Farming Scheme, a five-year grant programme managed by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.” From the outset, the venture’s produce has been grown organically, using no chemicals, while the team has learned to work with natural systems to improve soil health, manage pests and move steadily toward a regenerative, no-dig approach, says Cullen, stopping mid-sentence to check the time.[ Life on a remote Danish island: It is the same as west Cork in many waysOpens in new window ]Oh dear! It is past time for her to get on her boots and dig some new potatoes, chill the wine and pick some wildflowers for a special féasta for the group attending the annual Bard Summer School that night.Established by Sandy Dunlop and Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop, whose paternal forebears were related to Michael Joe O’Malley, the past and the present are sure to meld later that July evening as the chatter rises and falls like the tide below. stonebarncafe.ie, macallafarm.ie clareisland.ie for information on ferries