Joe McNamee: Southern hospitality continues to stand firm — despite a tough year
Dingle’s 505 was astounding, Damien Ring and Suzi O’ Gorman’s new restaurant as good as any out there, and what Ring can do to beetroot alone is pure alchemy: My favourite restaurant meal of the year.
I don't sense I’m alone in thinking that it has been a strange and deeply unsettling year.
Geo-political crises now appear to be multiplying exponentially, their impact on ordinary citizens around the world felt in real time.
Approaching peak insanity, the urgent requirement to tackle the existential threat of global environmental destruction head on is now apparently no longer that urgent.
This all impacts on consumer confidence, which impacts profoundly in turn on the hospitality industry.
Many restaurants are full, bookings hard to come by, but diners are no longer spending freely — often making do with two courses, even one instead of the usual three, and the arse is falling out of restaurant wine sales.
Add in all the other soaring costs, particularly labour, and many restaurants are running to stand still.
And yet, that remarkable resilience — a hallmark of the sector — remains to the fore, so evident in the wonderful welcomes and the gorgeous food I experienced this year.
At its finest, all other cares slipped away for as long as I dined. And, boy, did I dine.
In Dublin, I found greatest pleasure in familiar comforts: Lunch at that perennial old stager, the Good World Restaurant, with authentic Chinese cuisine including moreish steamed sweet sponge; craic and cracking fare at the delightful La Gordita, relishing callos tradicionales, a traditional tripe stew; my old favourite, Etto, has a lock on intoxicating conviviality, and the unadorned majesty of red wine prunes and vanilla mascarpone encapsulates its commitment to flavour above all else.
A return to The Tannery is akin to returning home to find someone else has not only cleaned up and lit the fire but also done all the cooking — a benchmark for the best of Irish cuisine and immaculate hospitality.
We nearly had to be dragged out of Farmgate Lismore after a long, lingering lunch in the sunny courtyard; a return to road-test its winter worthiness, this time inside the beautifully renovated old bar is on the cards.
Landline restaurant at Park Hotel Kenmare was not just a visual revelation. New head chef James O’Sullivan has quietly reinvigorated the offering, no showboating, just precise delivery of very tasty food.
Dingle’s 505 was astounding, Damien Ring and Suzi O’ Gorman’s new restaurant as good as any out there, and what Ring can do to beetroot alone is pure alchemy: My favourite restaurant meal of the year.
Just 15 years ago, Cork City’s food offering was dull, conservative, and fearful of innovation. This summer’s Cork on a Fork long-table dinner brought home how much has changed.
Miguel Frutos is now taking Paradiso to hitherto uncharted heights, his extraordinary tasting menu exquisitely complemented by new owner and sommelier Dave O’Mahony’s superbly curated wine list.
In Ballymaloe House, La Daughter and I entered the original Garden of Eden of Irish hospitality, where head chef Dervilla O’Flynn and head pastry chef JR Ryall continue to divine Myrtle’s magic in superb local produce.
Takashi Miyazaki blew us all away, taking just 10 minutes to do what so many others find impossible over a lifetime: Turning tripe into a truly exquisite dish, converting a packed tent at his Cork on a Fork demo.
In Good Hood, I enjoyed some of the finest pizza I’ve had in years.
In Proby’s, I finally found the restaurant it has threatened to become since first opening — mushroom custard a standout.
Cask, always a great cocktail bar, finally discovered a culinary potential to match under head chef Robert Birins.
In Nosh 19, Cork at last has access to authentic Chinese cuisine, chef Ben Wong’s Hunan beef stir fry one cracker of many.
The Glass Curtain is now unquestionably a national contender. A superb five-courser for the Examiner Eats Club was mind-blowing — not a single bum note, crowned by Peter Twomey’s Glenbrook Farm free range pork.
Against impossible odds, Irish hospitality still shows up for work each day. I hope you will too, because without the bright light of Irish hospitality, our already too dark world would be infinitely darker still.
The dawn of a new era sees the baton being handed from one great Cork food institution on to the next generation as, after 44 years, the iconic Quay Co-Op restaurant space, on Sullivan’s Quay, becomes a new restaurant under My Goodness Food.
Beginning Sunday December 14 with a walk-in pop-up vegan restaurant and cafe running right up until Christmas, the My Goodness team will then close for a few weeks to prepare for the grand opening proper.
Meanwhile, another pop-up running on Friday and Saturday nights up to Christmas, sees one of my favourite Irish flavour fiends, chef Simon Kershaw guesting in Joanne Cassidy’s Kitchen Stories, in Ballydehob, for some fab old school flavours. (Instagram: @KitchenStoriesWestCork)
One of the great food-related charitable initiatives of this year was the One Plate for Palestine campaign conceived by Beverley Mathews, of L’Atitude 51, and Barbara Nealon, of St Francis Provisions.
Barbara returns for one final bite of the cherry along with fellow Kinsale creatives, ceramicist Lisa Wilson, and artist/illustrator Audrey Cantillon for a Christmas Winter Mini-Market (December 16/17, from 11am-6pm) featuring the work of both talented artists, including Lisa’s cups, teapots, jugs and Christmas decorations (Insta: @lisawilsonceramics) and Audrey’s prints, t-shirts, hoodies, cards, graphic tea towels and custom Kinsale-branded gifts (Insta: @cantillona).
Barbara will look after all things edible, with nibbles, coffee, mulled cider and wine during the day and beautifully curated festive food and wine boxes for gifting, featuring much of the superb produce and wines used by the restaurant on a regular basis supplemented with other judicious picks. The pop-up concludes with a party (December 17, 6-8pm) and 20% of all food and beverage sales going to One Plate For Palestine, and a raffle for a gift box selection from all three participants.
- Insta: @StFrancisKinsale
One of my final food recommendations of the year is rather obvious when you think of it, a good old fashioned Christmas Cake (€50), made with fruit, nuts, brandy, marzipan and royal icing, using a recipe of Natural Foods Bakery founder Wendy O’Byrne and baked by Ben Le Bon for Natural Foods Bakery, and also available in the Alternative Bread Company, in the English Market, and Ben’s Seeds bakery outlet, in Kinsale, which he co-owns with his sister-in-law, Ingrid Kelly.
Some Christmas cakes falter on sugary excess or an overly dense cake but this one gets it just right every time, down to the very pretty finish, and while I mightn’t have a slice right after Christmas dinner, I doubt very much if there’ll be any left over by New Year’s Eve.
