This Camp for Grownups Combines Cooking and Survival Skills

Tucked in the Irish woods near Finnebrogue Lough, 21 miles outside Belfast, a path winds past a cluster of glamp-worthy, Scandinavian tipis and opens on a sloped clearing. A shelter made from wood and found rubbish sits opposite an open-sided tent, which houses wood shelves full of cast iron cookware and long wood benches converging around a huge, glowing fire pit. There, resident chef Rory Gorman, who also cooks at Belfast hipster brunch restaurant Stereo, dashes around like a human blur — depositing thick rafts of sourdough onto grill grates, whipping up wild herb butter, and dabbing leek thyme cream onto charcoal crackers.

I’m offered a mug of fragrant, wild-foraged elderflower and lemon balm tea, which I sip as I take in the full scene at Finnebrogue Woods, an event venue, bushcraft classroom, campsite, and wood-fired cooking lab in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland. Bushcraft expert and mountain guide Rob Hill built this place — which also features a smokehouse made from pallet wood, moss, a repurposed barrel, and “bits and bobs,” plus half a dozen fire pits rigged with grilling apparati — using the forest and found materials.

It’s the stuff of dreams for the outdoor enthusiast, agrotourist, barbecue nerd, and end-of-the-world prepper alike. Here you can begin the day learning how to survive in the Irish wilderness — foraging for edible plants or smoking local meat — and end it with a huge, breathlessly seasonal feast cooked over the coals by Gorman.

“To some people it’s hell,” Hill deadpans with a smile. He’s slicing oak- and coffee-smoked beef bound for Gorman’s charcoal crackers on a length of wood that’s “sterile because we just chopped it.” The meat came from one of a hundred small, black Dexter cattle roving in the grass just up the path at the adjacent Fodder farm shop and cafe, on 230 rolling acres that the Lindsay family has farmed for more than 60 years.

Hill sleeps out here in the shelter most nights with his Irish setter mix, “Wreck-It” Ralph and the occasional fox who nibbles his shirt sleeve in the hope of getting in Hill’s warm bed. After leaving the military in 2017, he intended to be a mountain guide but instead got into bushcraft, or the practice of skills to thrive in natural environments. In search of land to work with, Hill started leasing a wooded plot from Finnebrogue owner Ed Lindsay. He later built a new camp on the current site, and it was brought under the Finnebrogue Woods umbrella — which has hosted weddings since 2016. Hill began teaching classes and hosting experiences here in 2019, which include primitive protein smoking, wild foraging, sourdough bread-making, leathercraft and utensil-carving, and survival skills for kids. In 2022 wild camping became available. Between April 2021 and October 2022 alone, Hill taught some 4,000 visitors.

At the start of each bushcraft class, he’ll give students a steel fire striker and 20 minutes to start a fire using what’s around — a task that vexes pretty much everyone in this often-damp place. 

“Everyone can shower sparks,” Hill says. “You need the knowledge of where the natural resins are in plants.” Using his knife he scratches off a few shavings of one such innate fire starter, birch bark, and conjures a flame within seconds. 

Hill has a wealth of information about the utilitarian potential of what’s around, not just in terms of ready tinder, which also includes cherry bark and the fungus chaga, and — if you have them in your pack — Doritos. (It’s the flammable combo of cornstarch, salt, and vegetable oil.) He’s well-versed in the medicinal properties of the myriad edible plants that thrive here, from seasonal mushrooms like wood bluets, porcinis, and chanterelles to wild garlic and fennel.

“I was so tunnel vision about the culinary uses of foraging,” before connecting with Hill, says Gorman, who plucks a few fennel fronds from the bowl of ingredients he foraged earlier to garnish the charcoal crackers with smoked beef. “Joining forces with Rob, I’ve learned so much about the practical and medicinal uses of plants, the structure of a campsite; he’s even fashioned me a whisk from birch bark.”

Gorman has been the chef at Stereo since his friend, chef Oisin Montgomery, opened it in December 2022. He was running a pop-up series at restaurants across Belfast when Finnebrogue approached him to host a smoke-infused pop-up dinner. He joined as Finnebrogue’s resident chef last summer, while Hill was on sabbatical. This spring, Finnebrogue also officially brought on Joan Noade as business development and delivery director, which helped Gorman settle into a more culinary role. (Though Noade also makes killer campfire bread.)  

“I have a very primal soul,” says Gorman, who’s camped his whole life. “I belong out in the woods using my senses. I think a lot of chefs obviously strive to be seasonal. But I’ve been lucky to get hyperseasonal — not to use that s— word — through foraging and working in tune with the food at my feet.”

Gorman has already moved on to prepping our late lunch. He plunks C-shaped Dexter picanha steaks onto a sizzling cast iron pan and strews them with whole garlic and rosemary leaves. He rotates grill-marked local carrots, corn, and a few skewered whole zucchini fresh from the smokehouse, then dashes to the other side of the fire to tend to cast iron pans of waxy potatoes and mushrooms simmering in cream. Behind him, a technicolor arsenal of tiny jars of sauces, garnishes and pickles he made earlier await their gilding turn: herb-trim chimichurri to top the picanha; pickled carrots, basil-black pepper burnt breadcrumbs, and mustard dressing for a salad of local lettuces; vegan chipotle “nacho crunch” for the charred corn; and tangy-sweet basil yogurt and pickled red cabbage for the smoky courgettes.

Our lunch also acts as unofficial R&D for the Midsummer Night Feast that Finnebrogue will host a few days after we leave, on the summer solstice. There, Gorman will pair his oak- and coffee-smoked beef with burnt tomato and green chili, the breadcrumbs will garnish carrot and zucchini flowers, and he’ll smoke fresh ricotta for smashed summer squash. Midsummer is one of four fire-cooked Feasts Finnebrogue hosts each year, along with Cinco de Mayo Feast in the Woods, Lughnasa Feast Night (an homage to ancient Celtic celebration), and Harvest Feast Night.

“That’s my highlight,” Gorman says, “to be in a grounded place like the forest that I can bring my professionalism to.”

For now, it’s my turn to heap my plate with the charred food from our feet. I grab a seat near the glowing fire. Ralph, tethered to a reach-in cooler lest he spring off to root out any nearby woodland critters, makes devastating eyes in my direction as I dig into the beef, which is toothsome and intensely beefy, oozing buttery fat with a piquant edge from garlic, fresh herbs, and vinegar. I set aside a small, fat-capped piece of beef to sneak to Ralph later. My hands are cold in the late afternoon chill, but I’m warm from my belly to my feet — and struck by this innate yet novel feeling of living so sumptuously at the edge of the wild, whose rougher edges have been softened by our talented hosts.

“I find it very hard to articulate how all this makes you feel, really,” Gorman tells me later. “It’s such a simple pleasure that so much work, so much thought, so much effort has gone into.”

He asks if I know the Spanish word, sobremesa, which roughly translates to the time spent sitting around sharing stories with friends and loved ones just after a meal. 

“There’s a sense of community, love, and lack of stress that you feel in that moment; it’s an idea I base all my cooking around,” he says. “The highlight of Finnebrogue is bringing that to such an earthly scene.”