Restaurant review: Finish-at-home takeaways from Da Mirco and Greene's/Cask
Mirco Fondrini, owner, da Mirco osteria, Bridge St., Cork, handing out a takeaway of traditional Italian food and wine through click & collect. Picture: Denis Minihane.
As a firm believer that takeaway food is best eaten within sight of the place where it has been cooked, I rarely if ever consume the stuff at home and the Deliveroo crew have yet to darken my doorway.
Most hot takeaway food, especially fast food, is best enjoyed within minutes of being served. I’ve more than once relished crisp battered cod and chips seated on a wall outside the chipper; have wolfed down many a burger while leaning into a sheltering doorway or strolling slowly homeward but can barely remember the last time I ate takeaway food at home. I can’t remotely remember the last time I enjoyed it.
A fish supper entombed in newspaper will continue cooking in its own steam. After just 10 minutes, crispiest batter becomes clammy dough, chips, flaccid and stodgy, while sauces and juices of succulent burger take no time to render soft bun as soggy pap dissolving in your fingers.
Cold pizza can be the breakfast of champions on a ‘morning after’ but nothing disappoints like takeaway pizza, still warm yet bearing none of that fresh-from-the-oven thermonuclear heat when it was at its perfect peak.
And yet for the last number of weekends I’ve ferried home multiple bags and boxes of pre-prepared food for our evening meal, to the point my own kitchen is wondering whether I’m having an affair.
The crucial difference is that this isn’t takeaway, rather it's ‘finish-at-home’. Professional restaurant chefs have done the heavy lifting, all the prep and prolonged cooking earlier that day. All that remains is to pop it in the oven, perhaps heat a sauce, plate it up and lap up all the credits. And it’s proving to be mighty fun indeed.
Our Click&Collect from Greene’s/Cask does for two nights. A box containing BBQ Burger (with brioche buns, cheese, bacon, gherkins, sauce) & Chicken Wings (approximately 12, according to the two-legged hounds who ate the bulk of them) and serving four, is excellent value at just €40. Add in four very nice chocolate mousses and it’s a steal.
Grilled Halloumi comes with a nicely balanced curry of Chickpea, Red Pepper and Coriander, while Pork Belly and Black Pudding Beignets, with Apple compote and Celeriac Salad is a cracking dish. Venison pie in puff pastry is quite delicious with Game Jus and Carrot Puree and a par-cooked pan-seared hake, served with saffron and pea risotto, makes it to the plate after its second application of heat as a still decent piece of fish — no easy feat. Desserts of Eclairs with Salted Caramel and Raspberry Cheesecake with Honeycomb are pleasurable and the cheese ‘board’ is quite excellent: nice hunks of Gubbeen and Durrus, good homemade cheese crackers, grapes and onion relish.
Mirco Fondrini’s Da Mirco Osteria offers an always enjoyable take on home-cooked Italian comforters and we compensate for the absence of his legendary hospitality by amping up the domestic atmosphere with way too many candles and a Spotify selection of Italian folk favourites — as cheering as it is cheesy — and wind up enjoying an outrageously entertaining evening of too much food, too much wine and far too much laughing.
Polenta Taragna al funghi porcini Valtellinesei is an umami time bomb from Fondrini’s homeplace of Valtellina, in Northern Italy, roast polenta, Casera cheese and porcini mushrooms, while it would take a heart of stone and palate of steel not to be seduced by the simple charms of classic parmigiana di melanzane — a layered ‘lasagne’ of fried aubergine, tomato sauce and pecorino cheese with bruschettina. We are not in the market for full pizzas so two single slices of deep crust pizza al taglio (Margherita and Spicy Salami) are a perfect compromise.
There is the proverbial 'atin’ and drinkin’ in Lasagna Bolognese with a savoury slow-cooked ragu; while Cannelloni di Magro, filled with spinach, ricotta and pecorino are especially elevated by a light, bright tomato and basil sauce. And, yes, there is tiramisu.
Chefs, restaurateurs and diners alike are all pining for the day when we can once more relish the unsurpassable pleasure of eating great food in a packed and buzzing restaurant but for the moment Finish-At-Home remains a valuable lifeline to ensure we will be able to do so again in the future — so why not give it a whirl. You can even pop a chef’s toque on your head and pretend you have a Michelin star for the evening — I won’t tell anyone!
