Savouring the taste of Ireland: My best meals from across the country in 2022

Following a year of dining at the country's best tables, Joe McNamee on his best meals of 2022

From Cork and Dublin to Galway and Waterford —Joe McNamee has had some great meals in 2022.

There are days and evenings when the last thing I want to do is go “out to work”, but, unlike most other professions, I rarely moan in public about my lot, a large portion of my work being most people’s idea of sheer, unadulterated pleasure, travelling the country and putting on the nosebag in some of the finest restaurants in the land; to cavil would be akin to complaining that my diamond shoes are pinching a tad at the heel.

And while there are evenings when I’m loath to leave the comfort of my own always well-stocked table to head out into a cold, wintery night, even worse is when I’m settled happily in a restaurant, only for things to start going wrong, whether on the plate or with the service or, worse, a perfect storm of both.

As my most regular and long-suffering dinner companion, SpouseGirl, will confirm, any semblance of joy or fun is gone for the night, as she registers the shutters come down over my eyes as I slip into completely detached professional mode, conscious that, if I’m going to have to be critical of an establishment, I want to be entirely fair, and not miss so much as a single beat for the rest of the evening — and there’s nothing more unappealing on a night out than hanging around with someone at “work” when things go wrong.

In addition, I find going out to a restaurant and having a bad meal extremely disappointing, the class of mini-Christmas when all you get is coal. But I’m a canny sort. At this ripe old age, I’ve evolved a fair nose for sniffing out good from bad before I go through a restaurant’s doors. Some establishments, I can tell from afar (reading menus, consulting a select few fellow eaters, stalking online), will never be anything other than awful so why put myself, my guest diner/s and the restaurant through the trauma of a negative experience?

That’s why my reviews are rarely damning. (Neither am I a fan of reviewing as a bloodsport; that old AA Gill model left me entirely cold, taking too much relish in dancing on people’s livelihoods to titillate readers over Sunday brunch.) Those only tend to occur when a promising restaurant fails to meet the standards it has set itself to deliver to each customer; that is the job of a professional reviewer (not Tripadvisor!), to be able to read those standards and tell whether or not they have been met.

And, so, most of the time my ‘diamond shoes’ are exquisitely ‘comfortable’, dining out for a living really is an especial privilege, this year in particular, when it seems we were finally released from the worst strictures of The Covid, free to roam far and wide, relishing the sense that things have returned to “normal”.

OK, “normal” is probably the wrong word because The Covid has yet to be declared entirely extinct, so fingers crossed. The Covid has also wreaked substantial damage on the Irish hospitality sector, the full extent of which is yet to be revealed, especially when combined with the cost of living crisis and the geo-political impact of the war in Ukraine.

Perhaps it was that knowledge that put a keener edge than ever to my dining pleasures this year, a greater appreciation of the world-class offering we have and yet also how innately fragile the sector currently is, that it now needs our support more than ever, because, if lost, it will be very hard to recover.

And that would be truly heartbreaking, for the restaurant has become as vital to Irish social life as the pub, more than just a source of blissful gastronomic pleasure and one of the finest expressions of humanity is the act of sitting down together as one little social community, with family, friends, even strangers who become friends across the table, to break bread and share a lovely meal.

One of the earliest tentative excursions back into the ‘free world’, still not entirely maskless, was a trip up to Dublin to talk about Irish food at the St Patrick’s Weekend Festival, in Kilmainham, after which fellow speaker Gaz Smith invited me back for an impromptu lunch (my favourite kind, one that sneaks up on you!) at the marble counter of Little Mike’s, the younger sibling of his Michael’s seafood restaurant just a few doors away in Blackrock.

The company and wine was smashing and the food was sublime: classic beef tartare with crispy beef dripping fries; deep-fried soft shell Dungeness crab; Dublin Bay prawns in a whopping bisque; and more, all washed down with fine Riesling.

On an especially crisp, fresh evening in April, I dined alone in Éan Galway, (I adore solo dining, with only myself to please). And this was superb, beginning with Christine Walsh’s delicious signature dish of squid toast, divine devilled duck hearts, a farmhouse salad for the ages, washed down with some excellent natural wines.

The Old Bank, in Dungarvan, was a revelation, Michael Quinn’s former sous chef at Waterford Castle, David Larkin, emerging from the ‘wilderness’ to head up a kitchen turning out superb food in a gorgeous renovation of a former bank overlooking the harbour. We kicked off with smoked potato soup, on delicately pickled silky beech mushrooms and onion ‘fudge’ with the sweet fatty textures of foie gras, dressed with nasturtium, pea shoot and red-veined sorrel. The standard never faltered; it was no surprise to see its recent inclusion in the Michelin Guide.

Two great meals in East Cork followed: Darren Kennedy over as head chef in Sage Midleton, the highlight being Darren Allen’s free range saddleback; pinkish, tender pork, lightly smoked, with roast fennel, nutty Beluga lentils and apple sauce; In Dan Guerin’s Cush, we relished warmed smoked haddock in silky potato velouté, with soft boiled crisped hen’s egg, topped with sweet, briny Imperial Heritage Caviar.

Warmed smoked haddock in silky potato velouté, with soft boiled crisped hen’s egg at Cush

A return to the Quay Co-op, in the year of its 40th anniversary, was less about food—still very pleasant—and all about my emotional return to the very last place I ever cooked as a professional chef, back in the 90s, and to one of the loveliest dining rooms in the country.

O'Mahony's of Watergrasshill run by Máire O’Mahony and Victor Murphy is always a joy but the bar has been further raised. House mixologist John Coleman’s cocktail list is based almost entirely on Irish ingredients, adding Brian’s Wines to the wine list has improved the offering greatly and new chef Barry Phelan is a real keeper. Top dish was Glenbrook Farm free range pork belly, roasted ’til thick layers of fat became glorious crispy crackling, with succulent, tender meat, served with Paddy Frankel’s Kilbrack rainbow chard and butter roasted carrot.

Glenbrook Farm free range pork belly, roasted ’til thick layers of fat became glorious crispy crackling at O'Mahony's of Watergrasshill

Sonflour is an absolute breath of fresh air, its vegetarian/vegan Italian menu, based on premium artisanal Irish flours and hyper-local seasonal fare with judicious imports, is equally as light and invigorating. Young proprietors Eugenio Nobile and Lorenzo Barba have turned a tight little room into a funky, light-filled space and, if I’m pressed for a recommendation, Focaccia Vinyl 45 is thin layers of Ligurian-style dough sandwiching melted Macroom buffalo mozzarella and herbs, crisp edges, soft and creamy centre.

A return to Goldie would always be a pleasure, but the profound evolution and accelerated development in chef Aishling Moore’s cooking was a revelation, in a delightful little restaurant she now runs with powerful, confident energy, other chefs orbiting her like planets around the sun. How to single out one dish? Impossible, so consider buttermilk fried ling as one wonderful example: fish battered in buttermilk, flour and fermented hot sauce, deep fried, served with tangy bread and butter pickles and bright, emollient lime mayonnaise; each mouthful popping with flavour and textures that had me closing eyes, squirming with pleasure.

Saddle of lamb at Dede 

A return to Dede’s at the Customs House, in Baltimore, Ahmet Dede and Maria Archer’s Michelin-starred restaurant in West Cork, where new sommelier Joey Scanlon has elevated the service and wine experience to a level worthy of Dede’s extraordinary food, a Hiberno-Turkish fusion of superb, hyper-locavore seasonal fare: for example, taco of potato bread with brown shrimp; fondant of Coolea cheese on mushroom biscuit with isot crisp; Sogan dolma (stuffed onion) and adana kebab, Turkish street food ascending to culinary heaven—and all served up in the courtyard on a glorious evening in August when all was right with the world.

Milesian, tucked away in Castlegregory, in West Kerry, had been on my radar for several years but our visit on the last night of its 2022 season was an unexpected joy, for Frankie Fitzgerald is cooking food that would earn deserved national renown if served up in a more accessible part of the country. The larder is flush with fine local, produce and the cooking, while technically adroit, is deeply empathic, extracting exquisite textures and flavours that result in elemental and very gorgeous dishes. I’ve never had Skeaghanore duck breast cooked so well.

It had been three years since the “Four Foleys”, me and my three oldest friends had assembled for one of our annual sprees and Paradiso, in September, was venue for one of the best to date, sharing sublime food from chef Maedhbh Halton (since moved on to pastures new; her replacement, Miguel Frutos, every bit as good!), an extravaganza of extraordinarily good natural wines orchestrated by sommelier Dave O’Mahony and delightful service.

I returned to West Cork in late October with three sterling culinary comrades to show them exactly why I was raving so much about Dede’s. Another evening in the courtyard, this time swaddled in warm clothing with stove blazing nearby, was, incredibly, even better than my summer visit but Yay! Burger, in Ballydehob, on the same weekend turned out to be almost as memorable for similar reasons of convivial companionship in a wonderful venue, all the while relishing delicious food.

Beef tartare at Restaurant Chestnut

To Restaurant Chestnut, also in Ballydehob, where Rob Krawczyk’s culinary touch is now so effortlessly light as to be an almost ethereal otherworldly experience if it wasn’t so deeply grounded in the tastes and flavours of the locality. Singling out highlights is like peering at the night sky to select your favourite star, but SpouseGirl did wonder if a dessert of Velvet Cloud Yoghurt with Bay Leaf Sherbert and Dill Oil was in fact the nicest thing she has ever eaten in her entire life.

One meal on this list has yet to be eaten. That is because it takes place each year in late December, days before Christmas, a lunch in the Farmgate Restaurant, in the English Market, that lingers into late afternoon, just me and a very dear friend and, occasionally, No 1 Son. 2019 was the last one because of … yes, I know, it’s boring at this stage, but I have no doubt this will be another beautiful dining memory in what is one of my most favourite restaurants in the world.

L’Atitude 51 is a very special place. Over the years, La Daughter and I have visited regularly for coffees and hot chocolate.

We fetch up each year on St Patrick’s Day and Christmas Eve, treasured shared traditions, and I’ve enjoyed countless wonderful evenings, eating tasty food, drinking superb wines from what is hands down the biggest and best natural wine list in the country, a list fit to compare with the best in London and Paris.

In recent times, the arrival of Simone Kelly as ‘culinary director’ has seen menu, traditionally, a sound understudy to the main star, the wine list, become a treasure in its own right and the soul-filled team of natural wine evangelists under proprietor Beverley Mathews is one of the very best hospitality crews in the country.

We held a very special Grub Circus party there a few weeks ago: real breads from Benjamin le Bon, in Cork, and Sarah Richards’ Seagull Bakery, in Waterford, Dan Hegarty’s Teampall Geall Cheese, Simone’s Bean Stew, Cured Ham, Spiced Beef, cocktails of Blackwater gin and also Maharani gin, the best wines I’ve drunk this year, all in the company of some truly beautiful people. In a year of magnificent dining experiences, it was hard to top that one!