Menu: Design a prize-winning toastie; a food festival in Cork; and wine and dine evening at Circa
Amy McKeogh Festival Director of Design Pop and Alan Macilwraith Senior Architect- JCA Architects pictured with works from Design Pop
Design POP, the architecture, design and food festival returns to the streets of Cork city (Aug 27-29). It will see seven pop-up ‘pavilions’, collaborations between designers, architects and food makers in various locations around town. Collaborations include renowned artist, Maser, and the Crawford Gallery Cafe, in Emmet Place, and the students and staff of CCAE (Cork Centre for Architectural Education) teaming up with Blackrock Castle Observatory in Blackrock Castle.
A parallel programme of events, talks, exhibitions and conversations ranges across a variety of social, sustainable and environmental topics. One such talk, The Launch, explores the creation and launching of a brand and features Ernest Cantillon (Kinsale Gin and Red Earl whiskey), Tony Speight (WCC roastery), and Laura Edgerton.
The GROW COOK EAT food tour series is very much worth taking in. It begins with a garden cocktail and seasonal starter before GIY founder Mick Kelly leads all on a tour through the wonderful organic food gardens and woodland.
Head chef, JB Dubois, leads an interactive cookery demo serving up wood-fired pizza on the terrace, along with garden salads, organic wines and Grow HQ desserts, with a signed copy of the GROW COOK EAT book to take home.
A most splendid evening of wining and dining: The Menu highly recommends the Irish Examiner’s wine scribe Leslie Williams' hosting of a very special dinner (Aug 30) in Circa, in Terenure, in Dublin. This is in partnership with Rías Baixas wines with a specially created five-course menu beautifully paired with a selection of Rias Baixas wines. Dishes will include swordfish ceviche, manchego, jamon iberico de bellota, croquette and n’duja and red snapper with brown shrimp, hispi cabbage.
Pre-dinner drinks, snacks and five course dinner, with wines, €90 pp.
The immensely inspirational Hans and Gaby Wieland, founders of Sligo Food Tours, have launched Sligo Food Tours eBook, a dedicated digital guide to their choice of the best dining and and food producers in Sligo, including hospitality interviews and Sligo’s food history.
Chef Eamon Lynch’s online cookery school Sprig has released its latest list of classes featuring some of Ireland’s most renowned chefs and food and hospitality professionals. And a new subscription service just launched allows all who sign up full access. (Sign up before September 30 to gain the first month completely free of charge.)
Newly announced tutors include Kai Café + Restaurant’s chef/proprietor Jess Murphy, The Wicklow Escape’s newly appointed former Michelin starred head chef, Danni Barry, Aisling Moore (Bib Gourmand seafood restaurant, Goldi), Keith Coleman (culinary director of food for Slane Castle Estate), Conor Spacy (culinary director at Food Space and Zero Waste Advocate), and Tara Gartlan (pastry chef at Michelin starred restaurant, Chapter One by Mickael Viljanen), and two Michelin star restaurant, Aimsir’s general manager (and wife of head chef Jordan Bailey), Majken Bech-Bailey, for a special class on alcohol-free foraged juices and drinks.
Sprig’s subscribers can also access workshops with Imen McDonnell (food writer and cookbook author), Deborah Ryan (food stylist and photographer) and Ruth Calder-Potts (food photographer), and non-community members can sign up on a one-off basis for 90-minute classes on skills, techniques and ethnic cuisines.
Meltdown toastie cafe in Dublin is inviting you to create your own Meltdown Masterpiece for a chance to eat for free at Meltdown for a month as well as a goodie bag full of Meltdown merchandise. To give you an idea of the competition, the inaugural Meltdown Masterpiece winner, Thomas MacGiol, created The Hawaiian Spicer: Honey Glazed Ham & Pineapple with Swiss & Red Cheddar Cheese, Jalapeños, Caramelised Onions topped with Meltdown Hot Stuff on Sourdough Bread, which is now this month's Meltdown Special.
Visit Meltdown on Instagram at @meltdowndublin and enter your recipe in the comments of the competition post or email info@meltdown.ie, listing your choice of ingredients, sauces and toppings to be sandwiched in sourdough bread and grilled and don't forget to name your creation.
Though The Menu is a zealous champion of fine Irish produce, his larder is most definitely not limited by these shores. There are certain foodstuffs we will never manage to produce on the Aul’ Sod, yet they number amongst his most favourite and essential foods: in particular, coffee, real chocolate and premium olive oil. The Menu is especially partial to Spanish olive oils and is delighted to have encountered Peridot — a quite superb organic extra virgin olive oil, from a new Irish start-up, Maybridge Fare. Having returned with her family after almost a decade living in Andalucia, in the south of Spain, Orlaith Hickey created the Peridot brand, an exclusive marque for the Irish market, featuring oil from one of the region’s very best mills.
Harvested early (this vintage, November 2020) and cold-pressed from three olive varieties (hojiblanca, picual and picuda), Peridot is a verdant oil, grassy, fruity and resolving in the throat with vibrant peppery notes. You may well find all manner of uses for such an oil, in dressings, sauces and marinades, but The Menu believes an oil this good is best enjoyed raw — drizzled on cooked fish or al dente vegetables, a crisp green salad or simply poured onto a plate to be mopped up with proper sourdough bread with Achill Sea Salt, perhaps a salted anchovy or two and then a nice glass of crisp, cold manzanilla to wash it all down.
