Dublin: Full Irish with a bite

Fade Street Social, Fade Street, Dublin 2; tel: [phone]; fadestreetsocial.com

THERE was a time, not so long ago, when the very notion of an ‘Irish cuisine’ would have had gourmands choking on their amuse-bouches.

Back then, Irish cooking was firmly locked into the meat-and-two-vegetables matrix. It could be very tasty, but basically food was about fuel. Dinner was about dinner. For an island nation, we were strangely suspicious of seafood. With a few notable exceptions, the idea of turning Irish ingredients into fine dining just didn’t compute.