Joe McNamee: The Munchies are back — here are my food highlights of 2025
Fahmeda Naheed, Farahnaz Haidary, Chef Orla McAndrew, Phumie Nkosi Casserly, and Nadija Sedigi enjoying Breaking Bread: A Cultural Connection at St. Peter’s as part of Cork on a Fork Festival. Picture: Joleen Cronin.
I have written before of my great love for Limerick’s Milk Market, unquestionably the finest farmer’s market in the land, a superb range of stallholders trading in a magnificent setting, alongside those in fixed premises running along the side of the market.
It is in one of those fixed premises that you can find the Limerick outpost of Peter and Mary Ward’s Country Choice outlet, which began life as a stall in 2010 and the outlet is now open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The first time I passed through the doors of this house of edible treasures, I did a double take while my terrified wallet fainted clean away in my pocket, knowing full well there’d be some hard spending ahead and only one of us would be coming out alive — and that would only be the fat guy, his arms laden with a dizzying array of the very finest Irish specialty produce along with some judiciously selected imports.
15 years is an impressive run but that figure is utterly dwarfed by the 43 years that have passed since the original Country Choice outlet first opened in Nenagh, Co Tipperary.
The Nenagh mothership was so far ahead of the curve that many forget that the Wards were amongst the original pathfinders in supporting the produce of so many legendary Irish artisan producers, not least the early cheesemaking efforts of their near neighbours, Jane and Louis Grubb, of Cashel Farmhouse Cheese, makers of the iconic Cashel Blue and Crozier Blue.
Sited in a 200-year-old retail premises, it serves as delicatessen, cafe, and food retail outlet, its shelves pretty much a history of the rise of Irish speciality produce, including plenty of fresh local seasonal fruit and veg along with the best of new season fruits from Southern Europe.
Breads, cheeses, meats, condiments, preserves, wines, coffee … the list goes on and on and on. When I die, I want to go to Nenagh, specifically to Country Choice, My Food Emporium of the Year 2025.
Visit countrychoice.ie
In last week’s column, I shared a taste — pun fully intended, no shame around these parts — of some of the very fine dining I got through this year and, in the heel of the hunt, my best meal of all was had in 505 Restaurant Dingle, a seafood restaurant and wine bar, barely three weeks after it first opened, as I wangled a table during the height of the Dingle Food Festival.
I always knew Damien Ring was a talent but that night brought home to me just how special a chef he is. From the first taste of his exquisite bread, through three magnificent starters, then three equally incredible main courses, we could just about manage a single dessert between us at the finish.
Porcupine Bank langoustine, crab, turf-smoked sleabhac (laver) butter, included head meat and was roasted on the half shell. Cured mackerel, aji amarillo, pineapple, radish had my dining companion wondering why the place didn’t already have a Michelin star, while the care, attention and effort put into the humble beetroot – beetroots, radicchio, pickled elderberry, aged parmesan with optional smoked eel – made it the finest beetroot dish I’ve ever eaten.
Main courses saw monkfish, mushroom, Madeira, blackberry, hazelnut with a sauce for the ages, produced over weeks to mine the depths of flavour. Hake, on the other hand, was delightful in its immediacy, skeins of flavour dancing in and out, each taking its moment in the spotlight, and deeply delicious Dexter beef short rib, so tender it slipped off the bone like a barstool drunk after last call.
Damien’s life and business partner Suzi O’Gorman runs the show superbly out front and also curates a smashing wine list with aplomb. 505 Restaurant Dingle is my Newcomer of the Year 2025.
Visit 505.ie
As ever, there were some very wonderful contenders, from simple little pop-up dining nights to full-blown festivals, and I squeezed in more than a few.
The accolade, though, has to go to the Cork on a Fork festival. Several years ago, I met Niamh Murphy of Cork-based etc.ie, the woman who had been charged with delivering a new summer food festival for Cork city.
I don’t think my default position wavered for a moment: deeply sceptical. For starters, she had less than two months to deliver a programme and, with some experience in this area, I knew it to be an order taller than the Cork County Hall. Yet, Niamh somehow managed to coax her charge over the finishing line later that year, in the process learning some very valuable lessons.
This year, the fourth outing for Cork on a Fork, saw that foal finally fulfil its potential, romping home like a true champ, and I was more than happy to eat my original doubts. The flagship event, The Long Table Dinner on MacCurtain St may have been forced indoors by the weather but it was not only a logistical triumph but a wonderful evening of convivial dining.
For five days, the city was given over entirely to a celebration of Cork, its producers and produce, its incredible hospitality sector and its historical food culture.
Running the gamut from tiny gatherings to major events, with an emphasis on inclusivity, it reminded me, once again, just why Cork might actually deserve the title of Food Capital. Cork on a Fork Food Festival is my Food Event of the Year 2025.
