Menu: outdoor dining in Galway, stylish Dublin drinks, and a North Cork getaway

Joe McNamee gives us his roundup of the week's food news

The ultimate Henzo summer cocktail kit all ready to serve up comes courtesy of Hen’s Teeth and their collaboration with Dublin distillery Stillgarden

Serving up a fine brew from the Connemara Brewing Co, at Ground + Co, in Galway, all part of Tribe Hospitality Group’s outdoor summer wining and dining offering in the west

Tribe picnic basket

The Tribe Hospitality Group which operates five Galway locations (in Knocknacara, Salthill, Newcastle and Renmore) are taking to the great outdoors providing al fresco summer wining and dining for visitors to the west. Their Summer Picnic Basket includes wraps (buttermilk chicken or Halloumi & avocado), tortilla chips with guacamole, home-baked flapjacks, scones and Ground Bakery treats with the option of adding wine or sparkling wine and can be collected from Ground + Co, in Salthill, a new outdoor dining space also offering bites, snacks, wines and some very decent beers from the new Connemara Brewing Co, whose beers greatly impressed The Menu on foot of a recent sampling, bright, fresh and splendidly thirst-quenching. Baskets must be ordered 24 hours in advance and, to reduce waste, THG offers a free coffee to anyone returning baskets.

In addition, THG’s Wine + Co (+Beer) in Knocknacara and Salthill, offers an extended retail selection of natural wines from around the world, the list focusing on small, independent European producers (including German, Austrian, Czech, Portuguese)

Time for chari-tea

McEntee’s Tea, an Irish company creating some very decent tea blends that The Menu has featured before on these pages have come together with the Irish Hospice Foundation to raise awareness and funds for an essential service, the IHF Bereavement Support Line, always a thoroughly deserving cause and McEntee’s will be donating a portion of all sales to the IHF. 

Also available is the exclusive Irish Hospice Foundation Sunflower Gift Set (Afternoon Tea Blend, Irish Breakfast Tea Tin, McEntee’s Cara Filter Teapot (500ml), Perfect Tea Spoon and Irish Hospice Sunflower Seeds) with €2 from the sale of every set also going to the IHF. 

Irish Hospice Foundation Bereavement Support Line is a national freephone service on 1800 80 70 77 available 10am to 1pm, Monday to Friday, providing connection, comfort and support in these exceptional times.

Ballyvolane House options

It gladdens The Menu’s heart to see the hospitality sector stirring once more, albeit still in most constrained fashion, and he is especially pleased to see an old favourite, Ballyvolane House, in North Cork, reopened since June 2 and now looking forward to casting its net even wider over the coming months offering a wonderful range of hospitality options, in this idyllic country house retreat, including glamping, pop-up cafe, open garden, wedding venue, some very tasty food and one of their summer gin cocktails, featuring their own Bertha’s Revenge gin.

Outstanding in his field

Also very much on The Menu’s radar is The Field Kitchen at Camus Farm, Ardfield, near Clonakilty, in West Cork, an organic farm supporting rare breed cattle and now offering an elemental and quite delicious menu, featuring the farm’s produce, including their own organic Dexter Beef. 

But, if The Menu is yet to dine there how can he possibly make such claims? 

Well, the head chef is Bob Cairns, whose career The Menu has followed closely since his return to Ireland and relocation to West Cork, a career that that has seen him grow intimately acquainted with the local terroir and every time deliver it up on the plate in quite splendid fashion.

Ashford Castle hampers

The 350-acre grounds of Ashford Castle offer endless picnicking opportunities in an exclusive offer to guests of the Connemara-based hotel

A picnic in the beautiful 350-acre grounds of Ashford Castle in Connemara sounds like a positively gorgeous proposition, with a variety of hampers, including sandwiches of Andarl Farm Hame and Kylemore Cheese along with seasonal fruit and baked treats, all entirely delivered in eco-friendly recyclable or reusable packaging. 

That it is only available to guests sounds like yet another good reason for treating yourself with an Irish staycation break at one of the country’s most salubrious hotels.

Today’s special

Not even the too-regular rain has managed to keep The Menu from passing most of his time in the garden over the last few months, most especially at mealtimes or when entertaining select little gatherings of family and friends in pandemic protected pods, for it is hard to surpass the simple pleasure of eating and drinking with loved ones in the great outdoors.

And if there was ever a beverage designed for summer supping it is the cocktail. As well as crafting his own, The Menu has been quite transfixed by the range of pre-mixed offerings springing up around the country and is greatly taken with his latest discovery, Henzo Mix, three bottled cocktail mixes produced by the incomparably stylish Hen’s Teeth in collaboration with the ever progressive Stillgarden Distillery.

Hen’s Teeth acts as a class of cultural polymath in Dublin 8, functioning as a gallery/art shop, cafe and store where the common denominator appears to be a creative joie de vivre that has now quite literally been bottled in the form of three delicious draughts: Euporia Crush, a blend of pineapple, grapefruit and ‘sunbeams’, to be served up with ice and a slice of lime; and a cheekily irreverent Ninety Nine Spritz with vanilla sweetness. 

But The Menu’s favourite is undoubtedly the Henzo version of the Negroni, one of his go-to drinks whenever in Italy (or even out in his own back garden possibly celebrating a recent Italian victory that was received in Menu Towers as if Ireland themselves had won the World Cup!). The Hollier Negroni, made with Hen’s Teeth Dublin Dry Gin and Stillgarden O’Maro (a cracking Irish take on Amaro), very tidily navigates the line between sweet and bitter, all making for a quite sensational sundowner.