The Menu: Crack into these high-end chocolate Easter eggs
Egg-cellent stuff: some of Joe McNamee's Easter-egg recommendations
While The Menu may have a bit of reputation as a wild card, not overly given to routine, he nonetheless wholeheartedly embraces tradition when it comes to all things edible and is, therefore, most partial indeed to Easter — particularly if it presents as an excuse to eat too many hot cross buns, chocolate, and spring lamb.
Bean and Goose combine the first two of that edible Easter trio, with The Hot Cross Bun Story — a rich, creamy milk chocolate from Ecuador combined with crunchy hot cross bun from Wildflour Bakery in Innishannon, resulting in a hefty sharing slab that easily has the measure of any egg.
If it’s eggs you’re after, then the Smoke Milk Chocolate and Sumac Caramel Goose Egg is an especially fine creation of citrusy, sweet, and floral sumac caramel.
The English Market is a most splendid venue in which to replenish the larder for Easter, with The Menu’s beloved Chocolate Shop the first port of call.
It is laden with a dizzying array of chocolate choices, including its hero chocolate-filled shell — loaded up with all manner of splendid handmade milk and dark chocolates, from caramels, toffees, truffles, pralines, and more. The premium range of single-origin chocolates also includes offerings from Michel Cluizel Chocolatier and Benoit Lorge.
Pastry chef and chocolatier Norma Kelly is expanding her Praline café business in Mitchelstown with the opening of a second outlet, a new 20-seater Praline Pastry and Chocolate Café.
It’s a very nicely kitted out room showcasing her own range of patisserie, not least the Blás na hÉireann award-winning Praline opera cake, and a panoply of handmade filled chocolates — including a collaboration with another set of local Mitchelstown food heroes, Eight Degrees Brewing, with Norma using their Knockmealdown Irish Stout.
In addition, Norma has put together a tidy little Easter egg package with a stout and tasty hand-painted egg. It also contains six handmade truffles.
For those in the market for fine new season spring lamb for the Sunday roast, The Menu always advocates a trip to O’Mahony’s Butchers — also in The English Market — with plenty of carnivorous alternatives including dry aged prime rib and sirloin (omahonysbutchers.com).
If O’Mahony’s should prove a trek too far, then seek out your own local independent Irish craft butcher for meat of similar quality. Alternatively, order online for delivery from farm-to-fork operation Calvey’s, of Achill Island, to savour some of their uniquely flavoured salt marsh lamb.
During his regular passage to and fro past the very splendid Menloe Stores, in Blackrock, The Menu is drawn each time to the ginormous chocolate easter eggs in the window — the work of chocolatier Benoit Lorge, in Kenmare ( lorge.ie).
Elsewhere, pastry chef supreme Paula Stakelum, of Ashford Castle, has pulled out all stops in delivering her now annual hand-painted Easter egg using the luxury hotel’s signature Valrhona ‘legend’ 55% milk chocolate and filled with ‘legacy’ 29% chocolate shards.
The exterior is magnificent, inspired by the hotel’s interior decor and mirroring the intricate grain of the wooden shutters in The Connaught Room, a finish so sublime that it seems almost criminal to set about its consumption.
Luckily, The Menu is made of sterner stuff when it comes to putting away finest chocolate.
Available exclusively from Mrs Tea’s Boutique and Bakery, with all guests of the hotel during Easter receiving one as a parting gift.
