The Menu: Fine food fare and fabulous family feasts for Father's Day

Special selections in salubrious surroundings; and perfect, promptly-preparable presents

Porterhouse steak from Hawksmoor in Dublin

As The Menu’s progeny finish the final annual gilding of his ornate palanquin, that they might shoulder their beloved pater on his portable throne through rose-strewn Leeside streets on Father’s Day, he takes up his quill once more to draft a list of suitable gifts for the deserving father in your own life.

Finest Irish whiskeys and other similar libations very naturally rank highly on his list and he has a number of tipples specifically in mind.

Boann Distillery's PX I Love You gift-box, from its Whistler range

Boann Distillery’s aptly named P.X. I Love You whiskey from their award-winning Whistler whiskey range might even save on the cost of a card for the more tight-fisted offspring, and this fine single malt whiskey, aged in PX sherry casks for nine months, can be purchased as part of a Father’s Day package from the distillery’s online store, also featuring a chance to win a €100 voucher for Food on Fire’s barbecue rubs and sauces, and two products from the Whistler whiskey range — The Good, the Bad and the Smoky — which offers a campfire peated finish blended with smooth single malts (worth €56.95), and Whistler Irish Honey (€34.95), a single malt infused with honey harvested from the family orchards.

Do also check out some very nice single malts from Dingle Distillery that have been brightening up The Menu’s glass and heart in recent times.

A new and quite unusual single pot still with a mashbill of malted and unmalted barley from the ever-innovative Method & Madness is finished in a Garryana Oak cask, adding distinctive and singular flavours while a limited edition single pot still Irish Redbreast with Ruby Port, Bourbon and Tawny Port influence is the sixth iteration in the Redbreast Dream Cask Series and The Menu has never yet refused a Redbreast.

Bertha’s Revenge Gin makes for a very nice rhubarb martini, ideal for summer sipping.

Family bloodlines

If your own dear pater is an adventurous sort, then perhaps you might consider giving him the bird, in this case, an afternoon of falconry at the onsite Hawkeye School of Falconry at Lyrath Estate hotel, in Co Kilkenny.

If his taste for blood is up after that then whisk him off to Dublin to the newly opened Hawksmoor, ranked Number 1 in the ‘World’s Best Steak Restaurants’ and recently opened in the historic former National Bank building on College Green, an impressive 152-seat restaurant with an elegant bar.

Finally, the notion that chocolates are a ‘woman’s gift’ is utter nonsense and The Menu would be delighted indeed to receive a gift of Gráinne Mullins’ Grá Chocolates, in particular The Big Daddy, a giant chocolate heart featuring decadent milk chocolate, chewy caramel and Harry’s Nut Butter.

A feast for father in Dublin

All edible roads led to the capital next weekend for Taste of Dublin (June 15-18) for those in search of some top chef glamour in the salubrious surroundings of the Iveagh Gardens where some 30,000 visitors are expected to take in masterclasses from top national and international chefs, dine at popup restaurants, sample from finest Irish producers and sip something cool in the sunshine.

• tasteofdublin.ie

A family day out in Cork

Meanwhile, on Leeside, the venerable Cork Summer Show (June 17/18) returns with its annual fun family day out featuring the very best of Irish agriculture, and a whole host of dining and entertainment options.

• corksummershow.com

The Irish Yogurts Clonakilty Summer Show. Pic: Dermot O'Sullivan

A street carnival in West Cork

The Irish Yogurts Clonakilty Street Carnival (June 17) returns once more to the very lovely West Cork town and part of the festivities includes a humongous long table dining set up along Pearse St, seating 500 at a time, the ticketed event offering two dining choices and a children’s menu (served earlier in Astna Square, near the Family Fun Zone) along with wines, soft drinks, juices and desserts. Tickets can be purchased online.

• clonakilty.ie

Today’s special

Another glorious day, another glorious new Irish farmhouse cheese, and all is well in The Menu’s world as he extends a heartfelt welcome to Leitrim Hills Creamery onto the national cheeseboard.

Established by Lisa Gifford who grew up in the US and returned to the home of her grandparents in 2016, buying a small farm in Co Leitrim which she now runs with her daughter Gypsy Gifford and daughter-in-law Richelle South.

Amongst the mixed stock on the smallholding are goats with which they make two gorgeous soft cheeses, Leitrim Hills Melange (a mix of goat’s milk and cow’s milk) and Leitrim Hills Chevre.

Both are rich, full-bodied and possessed of a firm, creamy texture.

The Melange is buttery and salty-sweet, making for an excellent ‘workhorse’ cream cheese, very good in an impromptu ‘cheesecake’ with oat cakes and homemade raspberry jam.

It is the Leitrim Hills Chevre, however, that really steals the show, with such a mature and rounded flavour profile, incorporating a faint chalkiness to that same buttery creamy texture with the goat’s milk imbuing a divine citric note that trills through the upper register with a crystalline clarity, and a single morsel served solo, melting on the tongue, is a sublime experience.

Naturally, it manages all the traditional pairings of goat’s cheese with preternatural aplomb but for all the joy of these multiple marriages, The Menu was quite content to eat it with nothing more than a simple, clean and mildly sweet homemade redcurrant jelly that he found at the back of his larder.

• facebook.com/leitrimhillcreamery