Joe McNamee: Galway eatery Kai's new cookbook showcases eclectic and eccentric fusion

"Jess’s ‘fusion’ is different. She may scavenge freely from the global repertoire, recipes and ingredients, but cleaves to a bedrock of the magnificent Irish produce with which she is so besotted."

Jess and Dave Murphy of Kai

I first met Jess Murphy in 2013 at Electric Picnic’s Theatre of Food, then, months later, at a rambunctious Lebanese pop-up by restaurateur-activist Kamal Mouzawak in Ard Bia.

But the first time I properly ‘got’ Jess was the first time I dined at her Galway restaurant, Kai.