Owners Peter and Mary are passionate about the great food in their locality and it features prominently in the store and on the menu in the cafe. On the menu you’ll discover some great food products including cheeses, fresh produce from local farmers and plenty of homestyle country cooking.

Morning coffee in the café is accompanied by homemade scones and house preserves, whilst in the afternoon you can refresh yourself with tea and a slice of a home baked cake or tart. At lunch, scan the blackboard for the day’s offerings, which are all made in house. The choice always includes a soup with freshly bread, while mains feature the family farm’s Hereford Beef as a burger with spicy tomato sauce or in a beef and Guinness casserole. Other delicious menu items include dishes like savoury tart with roasted vegetables or cannelloni with free range chicken and organic spinach, a local cheese selection, chicken liver pate using local livers, jelly and brown bread ice cream or free range chicken and leek gratin with colcannon. Irish comfort food at its best.

The menu changes daily, so whatever is on you can be sure it is absolutely fresh and relies on availability of seasonal ingredients. It reflects Mary and Peter’s commitment to providing an outlet for local growers and producers. If someone turns up in late summer with a box of freshly harvested plums from the garden, as they had the day we called in, you can be sure they will take them and make them into something wonderful – Mary’s plum jam and plum compote are sensational.

We also spotted the first of the new season’s Beauty of Bath apples from a local tree and a few precious punnets of late summer raspberries from a nearby grower on sale and you can bet they were snapped up pronto by the gourmands who frequent this place. Some visiting Americans took the raspberries to enjoy on a picnic that afternoon and were presented with them complete with cream poured over by one of Peter’s friendly staff. Now that’s what we call top service.

What can we say about Peter Ward’s Country Choice Gourmet Food Shop & Deli? Its reputation precedes it. The man himself is a food icon, a mover and shaker who makes things happen on the Irish culinary scene. And it all started here, at his own vibrant and packed-to-the-rafters-with-good-things-to-eat shop in the heart of Nenagh, which was founded back when Irish food was barely heard of, let alone trendy.

Peter himself chose the location because of its connections with local food – there were butchers and grocers on the same street in those days and it seemed an ideal place to start. Now, his shop is a shrine for gourmets and the pavement outside is well-trodden by locals and visitors alike.

The first thing that catches the attention here is the beautifully presented deli counter just inside the door. It displays homemade salads, cooked meats and hams alongside Irish and continental cheeses, homemade pâtés and quiches, tarts, and terrines – you name it, you’ll find it. The counter top is laden with freshly baked breads and house specialities, so much so that it’s almost impossible to see the staff working very hard behind it. Shelves are stocked with homemade chutneys, jams, marmalades, preserves and dressings, all created by Peter’s wife Mary from family recipes she’s been using since the shop opened. You’ll also find great European favourites, too, like olive pastes and pesto, rare olive oils and a huge selection of wines sourced by Peter from small producers and imported specially for his shop.

A chill cabinet has traditional bacon joints, sausages, rashers and hams made with pork from the Ward family farm and cured by a local butcher. Don’t miss the unpasteurised farmhouse butter and Irish organic yogurts, too. This is a shop where you just don’t know what treats you will find; a fresh delivery of seasonal fruit or vegetables from a nearby growers could turn up at any time to be displayed in baskets outside. The family farm also supplies Hereford and Angus beef, and lamb from Black Suffolk sheep, all of which often feature on the menu of the Country Choice Café, situated to the rear of the shop. Staff are knowledgeable and enthusiastic and love to talk about the produce so be sure to ask them lots of questions to help you source exactly what you are looking for and things you didn’t even know you wanted but now have to have.

The Country Choice Gourmet Food Shop & Deli has been doing ‘Irish’ from day one and climbs higher to culinary excellence with each passing year.