Recently, in one five-star hotel they actually forgot to bring us the main course,” recalls Georgina Campbell, a bemused smile playing around her lips. “They took away the starters and said: ‘Now, what would you like for dessert?’”

Well, we had to ask. After all, as author of the respected Ireland Guide – now in its 12th edition- Georgina must also have enough material to compile an alternative Where Not To Go...Ever handbook, for negotiating the highroads and byroads of the country.

Not that Georgina ever goes out on a mission to find fault.

“We certainly are aware,” she explains, taking a sip of water – tap, not mineral – “But we’re hoping every time it’s going to be wonderful.”

Indeed, far from the stereotype of a severe critic, Georgina is warm and reassuringly down-to- earth when it comes to expectations. Take breakfast, for example.

“The very first thing I always look for is fresh orange juice,” she explains. “And an awful lot of places fall at the first hurdle. But it’s not that difficult and I can’t understand why.”

Fortunately, there are many people who do get it right and hang up their Georgina Campbell- recommended plaques at their hotels, restaurants or premises with pride, with recent award winners including Inch House in Tipperary (farmhouse of the year), the Dunraven Arms in Limerick (hotel of the year) and Belleek Castle, Mayo (Just Ask! restaurant of the year.)

But how did Georgina’s name become shorthand as a stamp of approval for genuine Irish hospitality? To discover why, you have to go back to a farm in Cornwall.

Farm to fork

“I was born in the top right,” says Georgina, pointing at a room in a black and white snapshot of a thatched farmhouse; the surrounding fields commanded views to Godrevy Island, which inspired Virginia Wolfe’s To The Lighthouse. While Georgina’s great-grandfather was a corn merchant in Belfast, her father Brian grew up in Yorkshire and studied agricultural science at Leeds University.

He then moved to Cornwall, where he kept a herd of Red Polls, plus one Jersey and Guernsey cow (“I suspect just for the butter we sometimes churned, for family consumption, and for clotted cream.”) and grew market vegetables and spring flowers dispatched on the overnight train to Covent Garden.

Her Scottish mother, Jean, was a domestic science teacher and a great homemaker; in fact, they were the first family in the area to have an automatic washing-machine. Georgina still uses her college textbooks, the Edinburgh Books of Plain Cookery Recipes and Advanced Cookery Recipes, and summarises her mother’s food philosophy as “using what was available, as fresh as you could.”

All four children were influenced by their parents’ values. Georgina’s sister followed her mother into cookery teaching, her late older brother worked in a top Paris hotel, while her other brother established one of the first British gastro pubs.

Although Georgina herself almost took a different path, after being offered places in two highly regarded art colleges after school.

Persuaded otherwise by her parents, however, she spent a year in France before studying French and English at Queen’s in Belfast, followed by an H. Dip at Trinity, and went on to teach business English and restaurant French at DIT on Cathal Brugha St.

By the mid-70s, however, Georgina had settled in Howth with her husband William Nixon, a sailing journalist, and was anxious to stay at home with their young boys.

“I didn’t want to have somebody else looking after my children,” she explains.

“And that’s how I came into writing really. I just sat down and wrote a list, ‘What do I have the ability to do at home with no money?’”

Having set up home on a shoestring, she approached the women’s editor of the Irish Independent with a proposal for a series of articles on upcycling furniture.

“I made lunch for her and we had a chat, but she said to me: ‘Well that was a lovely lunch and what I’m actually looking for is a cookery writer,’” laughs Georgina.

The Ireland Guide

And so began Georgina’s career as a food writer and reviewer, although the industry was very different then.

“I remember a tourist once stopped me in Dublin and asked if I could recommend a seafood restaurant in the city centre and I couldn’t think of one,” she recalls. “It shows how much things have changed.”

The upside, however, was it made Georgina’s discoveries – including a young man from Cavan – all the more unique.

“I was the first person to review MacNean House,” says Georgina. “I heard about it from one of Neven’s teachers in Enniskillen and that was amazing because we know the country pretty well, but we had to get out the map and go, ‘Where is Blacklion?’ But everybody knows where Blacklion is now!”

Georgina soon started writing for Fodor’s and later developed the first Ireland guide for Egon Ronay. When that ceased to publish, however, she decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and launch a guide under her own name in 1997, with her husband also coming on board and son Bob joining the team in 2005.

With technology, much has changed. These days, the print guide has a glove box-friendly format, while the website attracts 150,000 unique visitors a month, with products including a range of apps with chefs like Neven and Derry Clarke.

What hasn’t budged, however, is Georgina’s commitment to finding the best places to stay and eat in Ireland. Research trips tend to be five to six days long (sometimes even 10), starting at 7am and not finishing often ‘til midnight.

Taking the approach of an ‘observant, but normal customer’, inspections follow a logical sequence, from booking ‘til check-out. Poor service and tired furnishings are particular bugbears (worn mattresses in particular), while she says that the real test of a menu is often to order the vegetarian option.

Needless to say, it’s little things that can reveal the most.

“Is the front door nice and tidy or are there cobwebs all around it? Do they polish the brass? Are there cigarette butts around the door?” lists Georgina.

“Very quickly you get a sense of the pride people take in their business or not, long before you eat and sleep.”

Georgina credits Ballymaloe as an example of a place that has not only maintained, but set standards for the entire country; citing Myrtle Allen as her icon for many reasons, including her initiative with Euro-Toques, which encouraged many chefs to start supporting local producers.

That said, she is always on the look-out for exciting new places to visit, tipping Clare Island Lighthouse as one to watch. Producer-wise, one of her latest discoveries is Brewer’s Gold cheese from Kilkenny’s Knockdrinna, but in terms of food heroes she has tremendous respect for the Ferguson family behind the Gubbeen Farm brand.

“They’re a very interesting example because they are not organic, but it’s such a sustainable, well-run, traditional, conventional farm and I think it’s a place that deserves more focus for that reason,” she says.

“The next generation are making their own mark, the products are brilliant and I think they’re just a lovely family.”

As well as her work on the Ireland Guide and writing cookery books, Georgina is also involved in Bord Bia’s Just Ask! campaign, and is president of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild. But, you have to wonder how it’s possible for her to go incognito anywhere anymore.

“Ah,” she laughs, “You can always use an alter ego.”