The Menu: Without immigrants, Ireland's food scene would collapse

Good food transcends all borders

Riccardo ‘Rico’ Vallebella, with his wife Clair McSweeney, and their children, Brú and Rosa.

I recently attended a poignant and unusual funeral. Poignant, in that we were saying farewell to a man of 51, in the prime of life until diagnosed with motor neurone disease just five years ago. 

Unusual in how a removal became a full-blown celebration of a life, a spiritual potpourri of music, song, psalms and prayer as comforting as any traditional affair, multiple speakers eulogising a good man, including heart-fuelled speeches from his son, daughter and wife. All emphasised his huge capacity for friendship and love, and his immense courage in facing death.

Many mourners were of the food world, honouring a man first lured to Cork in the 90s for a cooking job, and who set up multiple restaurants and food-related enterprises. Cork’s Italian community was also out in force for Riccardo ‘Rico’ Vallebella, whom we were celebrating, was a Roman, from Italy’s capital city. In other words, Rico was an immigrant.

To even mention the word, ‘immigration’, in these fraught times has become a surefire means of ratcheting up tension, even amongst friends and family. It is an era where uncertainty is the only certainty, leaving many feeling powerless to effect real and positive change; fear, frustration and anger are understandable responses. But when those responses are fertilised by deliberate disinformation and lies, hatred and racism flourish and you wind up with pathetic misguided bullies on self-appointed ‘immigrant patrols’. Opt instead for verifiable truths, facts and statistics, and immigration is a vastly different story.

One thing for certain is, without immigrants, the Irish food world would be infinitely poorer, literally and figuratively. 

Remove ‘immigrant’ employees from Irish restaurants and hotels and the sector would collapse completely. Chinese, Indian, Italian and even French restaurants have long been dining staples but more recently Irish hospitality has come to depend heavily on their myriad employees from all corners of the globe. None of these people are ‘taking Irish jobs’; they are doing jobs the Irish no longer seem to want because half the kitchens in the country are crying out for staff.

The Irish restaurant sector is now world class but without immigrants, we would lose the 11 Michelin stars for restaurants headed up by immigrants. When the truly remarkable chef, Ahmet Dede, brings his Turkish culinary heritage to bear on sublime Irish produce, it is the essence of migration, infusing a native cuisine with new ideas and influences, inspiring entirely new directions in Irish food. Takashi Miyazaki may have returned his Ichigo Ichie star but his influence on Irish food’s evolution continues, a Dutch TV crew recently filming his Miyazaki restaurant and featuring Cork’s iconic tripe and drisheen, Japanese style.

The Irish specialty food producer movement began in West Cork in the 1970s and though Dubliner Veronica Steele’s Milleens cheese was the match that lit the powder, immigrants Jeffa Gill (Durrus Cheese) and Giana Ferguson (Gubbeen Cheese) were hot on her heels. Charcutier Frank Krawczyk, father of Rob (Restaurant Chestnut), was one of Fingal Ferguson’s first tutors and wild fish smoker Sally Barnes is now globally renowned. My favourite Irish cheeses of recent years are from immigrants: Mike Parle and Darcie Mayland, of Lost Valley Dairy.

And what of those who emerged from Direct Provision? Ahmed Saqqa and his family’s years-long trek from war-torn Syria eventually wound up in their delightful Four Liars Bistro, under Shandon’s clock. Activist cook Ellie Kisyombie has employed food to break down barriers throughout Ireland. Izz and Eman Alkarajeh’s Izz Café is a national treasure and a huge reason why Cork’s support for Palestine is so passionately fervent.

I first met Rico in the 90s when he worked in the Yumi Yuki Club, a legendary late night sushi bar — emphasis on ‘bar’ — launched by chef Seamus O’Connell, another immigrant. With his megawatt smile and glowing charm, Rico excelled in creating welcomes, injecting soul, passion and pizazz into multiple food businesses. His final pre-illness venture, selling pizzas in Blackrock hurling club, was a quintessential marriage of his Italian heritage and status as adopted Corkonian.

There will always be cultural differences in this world but nothing rubs sharp corners off difference like breaking bread with strangers and arising from the table as friends. As Rico knew well, food transcends borders and opens hearts, and adding fresh cultural spice to any pot creates the finest flavours.

Ciao bello, Rico.

Kombu cometh

Notwithstanding JP McMahon’s own personal passion for Japanese food, it is the infusion of cultures from abroad that has expanded Irish appetites to the extent that JP is now confident the time is right for his new venture, Kombu, a ramen and bao bar in Galway, inspired by Japanese street food and with a strong emphasis on one of our finest yet most neglected food resources, Irish ‘seaweed’, though ‘weed’ is an abominable descriptor for such a glorious foodstuff.

@komburamenbaogalway

TODAY’S SPECIAL

Bushby Farm

Even though strawberries are available year round, I ignore them completely, instead anticipating the first of the summer season Irish strawberries the way a child waits for Christmas. If the finest strawberries in the world are grown along a line stretching through the south of Ireland and England, then that makes my favourites, from Bushby’s (yep, Dave and daughter Lydia are also ‘immigrants’!), in Rosscarbery, the best in the world. This year’s crop is exceptional with a new variety, Parlando, joining their superb Sonata and Elsanta. Available in the English Market and O’Keeffe’s, in St Luke’s.

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