God help anybody who doesn’t eat their greens after all our time and effort,” jokes Joe Bohan. Irish Country Living is visiting the latest initiative of Dela Restaurant, run by Joe and his wife Margaret (Mags) in Galway’s hip west end: a 100ft x 30ft polytunnel on eight and a half acres of the family farm in Moycullen to supply them with organically grown salad leaves, herbs and heirloom varieties of vegetables this summer.

Packets of seeds – hailstone radish, ornamental cabbage, Chioggia beet, Passandra cucumber – show the promise of what is to come. And it’s all part of the evolution of the award-winning Dela (pronounced Dee-la), which is the Scandinavian term for to source or share.

“We’re only one generation away from this being normal,” says Joe of returning to their farm roots.

JOURNEY TO DELA

But first things first: how did they meet, we ask?

“I saw her and I fell in love with her. Simple,” smiles Joe. “I was painting a wall at the time and she was driving a red BMW – and that was it.”

Though, Mags explains that two friends had already pinpointed Joe as a possible match, which might have explained those drive-bys.

“They said, ‘Do you know who’d be good for you, now? Who is the exact same as you? They have two jobs and they’re going to college as well,’ which I was at the time,” she laughs.

The rest is history.

Both followed very different career paths before opening Dela in 2013.

Having started out labouring with his father’s construction company and working in Germany and the States, Joe returned to third-level education to qualify with a masters in IT, before working with Smurfit’s.

Meanwhile, Mags studied as an accounts technician and held various roles, including secretary in the local school, before she took a job as a night manager in a local pizzeria, where she qualified in a range of disciplines, including as a food trainer.

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They gained further experience in the food industry when Joe’s family became involved in the Mulranny Park Hotel in Co Mayo. However, the long commute coupled with rearing a young family soon took its toll, and the couple began to look for an opportunity closer to home.

“We live here, our children go to school here and we just wanted to be working here as well,” says Mags.

At that time, Michelin-star chef JP McMahon was re-locating from his former premises in Galway’s west end, so they had a suitable venue in mind, while restaurants like River Cottage in the UK provided a sort of template for what they hoped to achieve.

However, they admit that the first years were “incredibly tough”, as they tried to find what worked best for their business.

“Didn’t make money, lost our shirt,” says Joe, who reveals that by early 2015, they were wondering if they should even continue.

TURNING POINT

But that year saw a number of key changes that would steer Dela towards the right path. While the couple had originally employed managers, they realised they had to be on the restaurant floor themselves in order to build up a relationship with their loyal customers.

Secondly, the appointment of Alan Gosker as head chef – whose experience ranged from a farmhouse café in California to a pay as you please vegan restaurant in Melbourne – brought a fresh focus to the kitchen, with a strategic decision to build a brunch trade to compliment the evening menu.

They also made the call to close two nights’ a week – and used the time to plan what they really wanted for Dela, rather than trying to be all things to all people.

“Because it’s the old adage: if you don’t know where you are going, you’re not going to get there,” says Joe.

And it seems that paring back has paid off. Their brunch offering – which seems to have inadvertently become part of the staple diet of the Connacht rugby team – can see the restaurant turned over four times on a Sunday morning, with queues out the door.(They go through an average of 1,500 eggs a week from the Galway market alone.)

The popularity of brunch has also driven their evening trade: whether it’s friends enjoying a sharing seafood or charcuterie platter or savouring solo dishes like crab croquettes and monkfish with Connemara mussels and clams or Brady’s striploin steak with Portobello mushroom and caramelised red onion.

FROM GARDENER TO PRODUCER

And now that they have achieved this stability, the couple can concentrate on their new project – the polytunnel and farm: a plan that took root when Mags bought Joe a voucher for a day course at the Leitrim Organic Centre with Dermot Carey, known for his work with restaurants including the renowned Harry’s of Inishowen.

Dermot, who started out in the mid-1990s growing organic salad leaves and vegetables for restaurants on the Aran Islands, offers a consultancy and mentoring business to help clients develop fruit and veg gardens, from walled sites to green-field production.

“He changes your idea from being a gardener to a producer – and how to do it,” explains Mags.

Having stayed in touch after the day course, Dermot agreed to come on board to help the Bohans develop their polytunnel: from helping to select the seeds for their needs to planning and planting to “field scale”.

“It’s all about the kitchen, what I do,” Dermot tells Irish Country Living during a short break between sowing when we visited earlier in the season, “so every seed is sold before it’s sown, it’s going somewhere, it has a purpose.

“I start from the restaurant and work back.”

Rather than conventional vegetables, the initial focus will be on harder-to-source and more expensive varieties, such as Jerusalem artichokes.

“They can be up to €24 a case for 5kg and very often you can get them for maybe one or two months from your wholesaler or if you’re growing them yourself you can have them for four months, a continuous supply every week,” says Dermot.

Needless to say, this allows chef Alan Gosker to be more creative with his menus, while also cutting down on waste.

“From an economical point of view, you can grow heirloom varieties of carrots and beetroots and you can have all sort of colours at your fingertips – stuff that is much more expensive and specialised to buy from your suppliers,” he says.

“Plus it just feels right. It’s a better system.”

PART OF THE COMMUNITY

The economic argument is echoed by Joe and Margaret. They expect the polytunnel to have paid for itself within its first year, as well as helping them make savings in other areas, such as their waste bill, by using leftovers for compost to go back to the farm.

Future plans include working with the local school to allow children to come to the polytunnel to grow, pick and eat their own produce, while they will also be inviting children living in direct provision to visit through the One World Tapestry Project.

They hope to host harvest supper pop ups on the farm too and – with the proposed Galway-to-Clifden Greenway cutting across the land – see opportunities for further development, such as an artisan brewery and grow-your-own courses.

“So it’s only a polytunnel, but there’s an awful lot going on around it,” says Joe.

And it seems, an awful lot more to come at Dela. CL

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