The Menu: Upcoming food highlights include exclusive sake dinner and a cooking competition

Having adopted a ‘low profile’ for the month of January, The Menu will be kicking out the jams in fine fashion at what promises to be one of the culinary events of the year ahead, an exclusive sake dinner, on February 4, in the serene sanctuary of chef Takashi Miyazaki’s Michelin-starred Ichigo Ichie, in Cork City. It will feature six sakes from the restaurant’s renowned suppliers, Yuichi Hashimoto, paired with a full kaiseki menu featuring Takashi’s exquisite Japanese take on superb Irish produce. It is an opportunity not only to sample his sublimely rendered dishes but to experience the full flavour spectrum and innate culinary compatibility of one of the world’s great alcoholic beverages, often freighted with a complexity and sophistication of taste to equal that of finest wines. Booking is essential and only by email. ([e-mail])