Food & Wine

Access all areas: Could cafés and restaurants be doing more to make their spaces accessible?

For Billy O’Donoghue, restaurants that see him, rather than his disability, are the holy grail

Billy O’Donoghue in the River Lee Hotel in Cork city: ‘They see me, not the disability.’ Picture: John Allen Photography

Billy O’Donoghue loves good food. The 37-year-old Cork man’s obsession began with a college-era Come Dine With Me cooking challenge that, he admits, he took far too seriously.

His first cookbook was Kitchen by Nigella Lawson, and having read it, he set up a YouTube channel he named Rookie Cook to further explore his fascination with the world of restaurants.

On the face of it, we have a lot in common. Like most restaurant goers, ...