Joe McNamee travels to Tipp for lunch at an old favourite, reimagined

Ironically, as the world’s oceans increasingly bear the brunt of our environmental rampaging, seafood grows ever more popular and current trend du jour, ‘seacuterie’,nose-to-tail consumption of fish, including all manner of pickling, preservation and ageing techniques, is very much a conservationist response.

Ireland's beef farmers are not having the best time of it at the moment.

Brown Thomas appears strangely empty until the progeny and I click that not every day is Christmas Eve, our more usual visitation time, when we are invariably in frantic pursuit of whatever item of makeup will be the making or breaking of Current Wife’s Christmas but today is a midweek morn during the height of holiday season.

Italy is a complicated diverse place as you probably know by now. Let’s take their wine — there are 377 indigenous grape varieties used to make commercial wine in 329 designated DOC regions — France has a mere 204 grapes followed by Spain with 84.

Some 35 years ago, an old compadre and I set out one day to thumb from Castletownbere back to our base camp in near Skibbereen.

I spent 15 years as a vegetarian but through all those non-meat eating years, vegans were different, vegetarianism’s fundamentalists, hardcore evangelists who took ethical concerns to their logical conclusion, foresaking not just meat but all animal-derived foodstuffs and produce, including dairy produce and eggs.

Yet another scorcher in this summer of endless scorchers, so many, that we are now cavalier enough to spurn yet another beach run, instead opting for Sunday lunch in the leafy arboreal shade of UCC’s exquisite Glucksman Gallery.

So it’s here, it’s open for lunch and dinner and you simply must go darling! Glover’s Alley (GA) is a self declared ‘Luxury Restaurant’ and has been rather hyped, but for once it’s understandable.

YEP, the snow was wonderful and all that: fun and frolics for frostbitten ‘kids’ of all ages; community spirit at an all time group-hugging high; and cosy family nights in by the fire approaching nuclear levels of Hygge (the Danish word for ‘craic’, minus actual ‘craic’).

Nearly two decades ago, internationally renowned urban strategist Joe Berridge told a Cork audience in Millennium Hall that any other city in the world would give its eye teeth for access to such prime water frontage, in this, a place often referred to with parochial pride as the ‘Venice of the North’, yet we simply turned our backs on it, writes Joe McNamee.

IT MAY be the tail end of November but Christmas is about to arrive in Midleton, the town abuzz as crowds gather for the official lighting of the town’s yuletide illuminations.

Dax Restaurant, 23 Pembroke Street Upper, Dublin 2.

Several years ago, I stumbled across a copy of the first Bridgestone Guide, published in 1992.

The idea of a ‘restaurant’ has changed a lot since the word was first coined in post-revolutionary France. 

The Roadside Tavern is a good old-fashioned family-run Irish pub, hosting excellent trad sessions and Ireland’s first micro-brewery.

La Cucina Centro is a wonderfully funky addition to Limerick’s dining options, says Joe McNamee.

This is the best hotel food I’ve eaten in many a long moon, says Joe McNamee.

Nick Munier is well known from various TV appearances but you will probably know him as the yin to Dylan McGrath’s yang on the RTÉ version of MasterChef.

Mr. Fox is serving some nicely crafted classical French-Irish food with modern touches, says Leslie Williams.

A fun beach-hut in the city; cocktail and tapas bar with tasty food, excellent cocktails, good wines and charming staff.

Should we get a heatwave, I’ll become a permanent fixture in The Puffin Cafe, says Joe McNamee.

We are caught between a rock and an especially soft and self-indulgent place. 

Heron And Grey, Blackrock Market, 19a Main St, Blackrock, Co. Dublin; 01-212676; heronandgrey@gmail.com

A fabulous ‘last supper’ as Kevin Thornton, one of Ireland’s finest ever chefs calls time on his current restaurant.

How much longer can the Murphy’s wonderful cooking remain undiscovered by the rest of the country?

 

La Cucina opened in April and in recent weeks it has added Giorgio Casari as maitre d’ — former owner of the Unicorn on Merrion Row.