Spring news to savour & Stanley Tucci loves Dingle...
This weeks fresh batch of Irish food news includes new openings, my favourite pizza, pub pop-ups, virtual pub museums, market news, Stanley Tucci and plenty more...
Fresh ingredients:
News & stuff I’m excited about
First up some new openings… I’ve been watching and waiting for Fidelity in Smithfield to open their extension and it looks like it’s happening this week 🥳 even better news is that they have joined forces with Big Fan for their food offering ‘Sister Seven’.
In Blackrock, there’s a new cafe and wine bar called September from the team behind Leroy’s coffee and food truck.
In Tipperary, the Cashel Palace Hotel crew have opened a new restaurant doing brunch and lunch in Fethard called Sadlers.
The Ross in Killarney has added a new food offering to the hotel called Polly’s serving mezze plates.
There’s a new monthly cookbook blub in town, aptly named The Cook Book Club. Creative producer Mary Kilduff has joined forces with Blasta Books, Nine Bean Rows and Camerino at IMMA, to host monthly dinners with different authors kicking off on April 29th with WOK by Kwanghi Chan. Tickets priced at €150 are available here.
Good news for Mountain View events venue in Kilkenny, award-winning chef Keith Boyle has joined as executive chef. It looks like he will have plenty to keep him busy, Mountain View is hosting its first Foodie Fest event in May that includes a dinner cooked by three of the 2023 BBC Masterchef finalists - Nick Rapson, Forest Kwok & Matthew Samuels. More details on that here.
Boyle will also be working on their kitchen garden and will oversee a zero-waste street food truck ‘LOADED’ that will be part of Mountain Views' weekly Sunday Market which already has quite the lineup.
Speaking of markets, Glasnevin Market has a new home for (some) of its traders at 13 Blackwater Road starting tomorrow but this Twitter thread seems to imply some traders will be staying put at their original home at Slaney Close 👀
I love seeing pubs being used more outside of their usual role so it’s wonderful to see that Joyce’s Pub in Borris, Co. Carlow will be home to Plúr Bakery and Silín Coffee on Fridays and Saturdays from 9 am to 1 pm. Form an orderly queue!
Speaking of pubs, Heineken's latest project is a virtual Pub Museum experience kicking off today with Toners on Baggot Street. Pubgoers can scan a QR code on historical artefacts within the pub to unlock a trove of historical facts and stories. Next week they will add Sean’s Bar in Athlone on 11th April and then Mother Macs in Limerick on 18th April.
Congratulations to The Market Lane Restaurant Group in Cork who run Elbow Lane Smokehouse & Brewery, ORSO, Goldie and Castle Café Blackrock. They have been recognised as Top Employer by ‘Great Place to Work’ and the group has also won a Failte Ireland ‘Employer Excellence’ Gold Award.
Goldie is part of that group and more good news for them, head chef and owner Aishling Moore’s first book Whole Catch will be published this month. This latest Blasta Book is all about Moore’s inventive recipes and her insights on regenerative aquaculture and gill-to-fin cooking. Preorder now:
https://blastabooks.com/products/blasta-books-10-whole-catch
The Euro-Toques Young Chef of the Year competition is now open for entries for chefs in Ireland under the age of 28 in Ireland. I’ve spent some time with chefs taking part in this and although it’s a tough competition they seem to get lots out of it, so it’s worth considering if you’re looking to take the next step in your chef career. Details here: https://euro-toques.ie/young-chef-of-the-year/
Another young chef opportunity just announced is the San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy Competition 2024 is now open to applicants under 30 around the world. More details here: https://www.sanpellegrinoyoungchefacademy.com/
Galway Food Tours have launched a new tour called ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’ where you’ll ‘ramble through Galway’s neighbourhoods to experience life like a local’. Walking tours with a local are one of the best ways to explore a city and having done these tours myself before, I would highly recommend them. From €30, book here.
Table Talk:
Where and what I’ve eaten this week
I’ve got loads of recent interesting eating out bits to share and the plan is to share more of that here. I will get around to it soon! But for now, I wanted to give a little love to my favourite pizza - Grá. This food truck set up by Ryan Lally started out as a lockdown project making pizzas from his back garden in Maynooth. It was a godsend in lockdown, the highlight of my week was ringing his doorbell and collecting pizza, at a safe distance of course. Ryan has since progressed his business to a cool black food truck and currently trades out of at North Kildare in Kiclock on Fridays and Slip Hall in Celbridge on Saturdays but they are looking for a spot to trade on Thursdays - so if you know of any, let them know!
It’s not just the set-up that’s progressed, Ryan’s pizza was delicious to begin with but now it’s exceptional. He goes out of his way to source superb Irish produce for his creations and experiments constantly with options for organic flours to use - which are not that easy to get hold of in Ireland. Last week he was using Gilchesters Organic flour from a mill based near Stansted in London - that he had gone to visit before using. It was delicious, dark and chewy on the Flann O’Brian topped with Ballymakenny potatoes, Toonsbridge Mozzarella, Konckanore Cheddar, caramelised onion puree and wild garlic. Think Cheese & Onion Crisps, but on a pizza…
Dates for the Diary:
Tasty things to book ahead
Did you know that on the First Friday of every month, the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) opens late (from 6pm to 9pm) for free admission and some special events? Today is a first Friday and there is some fun stuff on including a reading by Emer McLysaght, co-author of the Aisling series of novels. The food connection? The Commons Café is also open late so you can grab a bite and a drink too.
The Department of Hispanic Studies in Trinity has some interesting stuff happening next Tuesday, April 9th. There’s a cooking demo with Lily Ramirez-Foran and a screening of the Mexican food film I Carry You With Me at the IFI. See Lily’s post here for more details:
I’m very much looking forward to the first Ballymaloe Festival of Food this May and being part of it - I’ll be chatting about my book A Compendium of Irish Pints on the Friday and there are loads and loads of excellent chefs, cooks, food folk doing amazing things all weekend - booking ahead advised.
Cook and artist Jennie Moran who you may know previously from NCAD’s Luncheonette has written a book 'How to Soften Corners' and is launching it next week at NCAD - more details here.
A good cause and an excellent quiz in a brilliant pub? Save the date for this one - L Mulligan Grocer in Stoneybatter is collaborating with the Irish food community to raise funds for food aid in Palestine - Wednesday 8th May at 7 pm.
I love when great chefs come together and that’s what’s happening at Carton House this month - The Morrison Room’s new head chef Adam Nevin will be joined by Bastible’s Killian Walsh for a one-off event on April 25th. The pair used to work together in London so they are looking forward to joining forces once again and getting some foraging done on the grounds of Carton. Dinner is priced at €140 per person, with an optional wine pairing available for €95 and bookings go live on Tuesday 9th April at 3 pm from www.cartonhouse.com
64 Wine in Glasthule has some fun events coming up including a Sushi Festival on Sunday the 28th of April. They will showcase a range of wines from Pet-Nat to natural, orange and sake all paired with sushi. Book ahead https://64wine.ie/
Speaking of sake, Daruma on Parliament Street is hosting a new event on Friday, April 12th called ‘The Sip’ to celebrate the start of spring and a new sake cocktail menu. It’s a good price too at €40, for 3 cocktails and paired canapés. Tickets here.
If you fancy something fancy this month, The Shelbourne launched a new afternoon tea to celebrate their 200th birthday inspired by the kind of sweets that the very first guests to the hotel back in 1824 might have enjoyed. Book here.
Petit Fours:
Sweet bits to read, listen to, obsess over etc.
Hot on the heels of the McKenna’s ‘Ireland’s 100 best restaurants for 2024’ in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago comes Food and Wine’s ‘101 Great Irish Restaurants’ guide, free with this weekend's Sunday Business Post. I’m looking forward to seeing who’s made the list.
Speaking of weekend papers, there was an excellent supplement with The Financial Times a couple of weeks ago about all things meat - if you missed it you can read it online here https://www.ft.com/goodmeat
Huge congratulations to Note on being included in this Food and Wine (the US magazine) feature - 20 Top International Restaurants, According to the Experts.
Do you have an opinion on curry chips? Chicken fillet rolls? I do! And I chatted to Sean Moncrieff about it on Newstalk last week, you can listen back here.
Among the things we discussed was Emerald Eats a London food stall selling Irish comfort foods - such a fantastic idea. Read more about them here.
I was also on RTÉ Radio One chatting with Claire Byrne and James Kavanagh all about the cookery and food shows we love - this was my whole world for a long time, it was so nice to reminisce about some of the shows, you can listen back here.
Greatest moment on the internet this week? Stanley Tucci giving a shout-out to Dingle on Top Jaw when asked about his favourite pub in London! There were of course some people outraged in the comments implying Stanley doesn’t know where Dingle actually is but I say calm down and take the stance I have - that there is simply nowhere in London he would rate over Dingle. And TBH I’d be the same Stanley.
Stanley has been out and about doing promo for his latest collab with Green Pan - I’m often dubious of celebrity homeware collabs but not this. Green Pan is already one of my favourite brands, they last forever, and Stanley’s collection is gorgeous. Now to figure out where to buy some and make space in the actual kitchen press for a new purchase…
Speaking of celebs in the kitchen, the latest star to write a cookbook - Pamela Anderson.
We’ve all heard about nepo babies but are we ready for nepo chef babies? Buddy Oliver is publishing a cookbook.
Thank you for reading!
If you enjoy my writing and want to support, my first book A Compendium of Irish Pints is out on May 7th it’s available for preorder now from Nine Bean Rows or preorder from an Irish bookseller. GRMA
https://ninebeanrowsbooks.com/products/pints
Thanks Ali 🙌
Thanks for the tip, I'll check out Heineken's virtual pub museum at Sean's Bar in Athlone!