While The Menu remains forever enraptured by our glorious West coast, he knows full well that man does not live on scenery alone...

The Menu, having saddled up the doughty Neidin and ensured his Party Hat was cocked at a particularly rakish angle, lit out for the Big Smoke earlier this week to the Irish Food Writer’s Guild Annual Food Awards, one of the highlights of the Irish culinary year when the cream of Irish food writers assemble to honour the world-class Irish food world.