The Ely
2004-12-18
About a month ago I sat down with three other Irish journalists and two
young Chilean wine makers in the newly refurbished Ely Wine Bar. The purpose
of this dinner was for we journos to learn about our upcoming Chilean
itinerary. Oh yes, we were about to go to Chile for a week to investigate
at first hand their wineries, and during the dinner we were treated to
a presentation of what exactly we were going to see and do. Since that
meal took place, we've done the Chilean tour and are home again. Soon
enough I'll be writing about it, but apart from the excitement on that
night that predates a long trip, I was struck by how well we were fed.
On that particular night the wines we drank were those of our Chilean
hosts, but I felt that a return visit was needed.
Butler Arms Hotel
2004-12-12
It seems that the Kingdom of Kerry is exerting some strange pull over
me of late. New Age friends tell me that perhaps it's because Venus is
about to transit across the sun for the first time in over a century or
possibly it's Pluto retrograde, but whatever alignments the heavens are
currently in, they seem to be drawing me inexorably to the Southwest.
This time I was on a mission, I was heading to Ballinskelligs to meet
a chef.
The Yeats Tavern and In Dalkey
2004-12-11
If you drive north from Sligo Town, you'll find yourself in Yeats country
when you get to Drumcliff. It's here that Ireland's great poet is buried
- or then again, maybe not. W.B. Yeats died in Roquebrune, near Monte
Carlo in 1939. His widow arranged for him to be buried there on a temporary
5 year deal, intending to bring his body back to Ireland before that time
was up. However the second world war intervened, and by the time the arrangements
could be made, the French authorities had already disinterred Yeats's
remains and placed them in an ossary. Ossaries are used quite frequently
on the Continent - when the body has decomposed the bones are placed in
a vault that is filled only with bones, and there they remain. By the
time Mrs. Yeats came looking for the bodily remains, the poet had become
a famous man, so no one was going to admit to having mixed up his bones
with those of hundreds of others. With great pragmatism the local Abbe
gathered up a few bones from the ossary and presented them to the widow.
These bones are now buried in Sligo, but there are many who believe that
his actual bones still lie scattered in the French ossary.
Uki Yo
2004-12-04
I'm beginning to find framed documents on walls inceasingly frequently
that are titled 'Mission Statement'. You find them in unlikely places
like dry cleaners or builders suppliers. They tend to start with something
like 'Our mission is to provide our customers with the finest quality,
best service, lowest prices,' etc., etc. Nothing quite like aspirational
ideals to assure you. So it occurred to me it was time I gave you a Mission
Statement of my own.
Purple Ocean
2004-11-27
You know what? Maybe the fundamentalists are right. Break a rule just
once and you open the proverbial flood-gates. The thin edge of the wedge,
the slippery slope, beckons you. Mark Twain observed that once a man begins
to commit murders, then soon he will find himself thinking little of theft,
and may eventually end up taking the Lord's name in vain. Such is the
power of habituation to dull our sensibilities. A couple of weeks ago
I broke a long-standing rule of mine and visited a restaurant that had
only recently opened. Now, a few weeks later, I've done it again. It's
generally not a good idea to do this. Restaurants are like any other enterprise,
you design everything as best you can, but the finest planning often doesn't
foresee all the possibilities that can occur when the sub-systems start
to inter-react - or to put it simply, new restaurants need time to settle
in.
Tribeca
2004-11-20
I've had a theory for a few years now, and I've even occasionally voiced
it in print. It's this: as more and more people eat out and more restaurants
begin to trade, there's more work for Irish chefs. Slowly, almost imperceptibly,
a growing cadre of talented chefs have been working in Ireland. It's a
feature of the catering industry that chefs learn from one another - they
learn in their apprenticeships, they learn from watching other chefs that
they admire, they learn by visiting other restaurants and seeing what's
on offer there. As the general standards of Irish cuisine have been rising
continually over the past fifteen years, so cooking skills have been spreading
around the country.
Ouzo's
2004-11-13
Last week I was banging on about value for money, but I don't think I
banged on about it enough, so I'm going to take a second bite at it this
week. But before I do, I want to define some terms, since value for money
can mean a lot a different things to different people. For me it hasn't
got anything to do with how much I spend. You can get value for money
in a restaurant at €100 a head and you can get value for money when
you get a bar lunch for €5. It all depends on what you get for your
money. I believe that in a restaurant, value for money is comprised of
four elements: the food, the service, the room and the price. Amazing
food, impeccable service and a beautiful room can be good value at €100
a head. Good food simply served in a clean but plain room, can be good
value at €5. The point is that value changes with your circumstances.
Campo de Fiori
2004-11-06
There are two things that preoccupy me more than most. The first is my
continuing quest to find good Italian food in Ireland and the second is
the relentless rise in restaurant prices. Let me be clear, I'm not one
of those who think that high prices in Irish restaurants are purely because
of rip-offs: no, I believe that high prices in Ireland are across the
board. Everything costs more here than it does elsewhere. That's not to
say rip-offs don't exist: they do, and some are so great that they verge
on theft.
Parknasilla Hotel
2004-10-30
Every now and then someone sends me an email along these lines: 'We had
a horrible meal last week in such-and-such a restaurant. Bad food, bad
service and very expensive. You should go there and review it.' My reply
is pretty much the same each time. I don't willingly go in search of a
bad meal. If I suspect a restaurant serves poor food and is bad value,
I simply won't go to it. It comes down to this; I believe my job is to
try and find the good restaurants and then tell you about them. After
all, each year I'll be listing my favourite restaurants in a dining guide,
I won't be compiling a list of Ireland's worst restaurants.
The Glass Onion
2004-10-23
I've always made it a rule never to review a restaurant when it's just
opened. That rule's based on enough years in the years in the business
to know that it takes a bit of time for any new enterprise to find its
feet. A new kitchen, new machinery, a new layout and new staff need a
little time to merge into an efficient unit. You could argue, and many
have, that once a restaurant takes money for its offerings, then it's
ready for a review. I take the point, but I'm still keen enough on getting
a good meal that I'll give myself every chance of getting one - and that
means avoiding newly opened restaurants.
Janet's Coffee House
2004-10-09
This week I'll tell you a tale of Italian food and Italians. It began
when my friend Sergio Regoli phoned me from Rome to say he was coming
to visit for a couple of days. Now if you ever have Italians to visit,
you'll know that pleasing their palates is not an easy task. They're hard
to please, they mutter darkly when presented with unfamiliar foods, they
complain readily if a dish is not cooked as it's supposed to be. They're
difficult.
Toronto's
2004-10-02
There's a stretch of motorway that runs from the French Riviera along
the Italian Tyrrhenian coast as far as Pisa, which I love. It's the engineering
that gets me every time I drive it - the road traverses Alps and Apennines
keeping an almost even level. You go through tunnels almost a third of
the way and viaducts another third. Some of these viaducts are so high
that you could get vertigo if you looked down, but you're so busy avoiding
Dutch caravans and campers that you don't. Years ago I used to take photographs
of the more spectacular bits - like the bridge over the city of Genova
- and wish that such marvels of civil engineering would get built in Ireland.
But if you wait long enough, everything eventually comes to you. Now we
have bridges and viaducts to match the continentals.
The Guinea Pig
2004-09-25
Here's a thought that been on my mind of late: if something happens once
we call it an event. If it happens twice, we call it a coincidence. If
it happens three times, I'd suggest that we're looking at a pattern. I
mention this, because I spotted a pattern this week - a third event occurred
that made me notice it. Firstly I bought a car a few months ago that has
a very retro interior and I found myself liking it. Then, a couple of
weeks ago I bought an espresso machine for my kitchen, which means I can
now get much better espressos at home than I can in Dublin coffee shops.
It's called 'Cafe Retro' and I chose it because it's a fine example of
retro design. Coincidence? Maybe. But when Marian Kenny suggested to me
this week that we could dine in Dalkey's Guinea Pig restaurant, I jumped
at it. It's one of those very rare restaurants that's been going for twenty
years and gives you a glimpse of how things were. So that's when I realised
I'm turning into a retro junkie.
Ho Sen
2004-09-18
This time last year I was in Vietnam, in the city that used to be called
Saigon. It was renamed after the war with America ended and now takes
the name of the North Vietnamese general, Ho Chi Min. I loved a lot of
things about Vietnam and the Vietnamese people, but what struck me most
was their obsession with food, cooking and eating. I was reminded over
and over again of Italy, where the same obsession obtains. Conversation
with strangers doesn't revolve around discussions of the weather, but
just like Italy revolves around food - what I ate today, what I'm going
to eat tonight, what I'm planning to eat tomorrow. The Vietnamese are
a bunch of Asian foodies.
Frank's
2004-09-11
I'm sitting here looking through my receipts from my Continental holiday.
It's the sort of exercise that can seriously disturb you - not because
I overloaded my credit cards, but because I didn't. I know it's becoming
a mantra, but after Irish prices everywhere else seems cheap. Here's one
from France, deep in the Languedoc. A three-course dinner for three people
plus wine, beer, coffees and after dinner drinks - €42.20. Another
from Italy just outside Pisa; a three-course dinner for four people plus
wine, beer, coffees for €83.50. Down in the Italian sticks that I
call home, it becomes even cheaper. The American Bar in my home town of
Gallinaro will wine and dine you for a fixed €10 a head - as much
wine as you want, as much food as you want. It's cheaper to eat here than
cook at home.
The Woodlands
2004-07-30
If you were to look up any of my old reviews on my website you'll find
that they have the review date alongside them. There's a reason for this:
the longer ago they were written, the less likely they are to reflect
the current situation. It's one of those inescapable facts - restaurants
are constantly changing. Chefs come and go, management teams change, new
policies are implemented on sourcing raw materials and the waiting staff
tend to change very frequently. All this means restaurants are often in
flux; sometimes they change the better and sometimes they change for the
worse.
The Guinness Storehouse
2004-07-23
Every city has its symbol, something that somehow encapsulates the city
in the minds of visitors and émigrés. Think of Paris, and
the Eiffel Tower will probably spring to mind, think of Rio and it's the
statue of Christ, think of Rome and it could be the Coliseum, think of
New York and the Statue of Liberty with her torch dominating the sea off
Manhattan is a powerful image. So when you think of Dublin what's the
parallel? The Spike? Liberty Hall? No? Then what?
Pad Thai
2004-07-16
Zagat, the American food guide, has a word for them - sleepers. These
are restaurants that have above average food, but for some reason are
little known. They are also exactly the sort of restaurant that reviewers
love to find, since it gives them the chance to talk about something new.
So when two restaurant reviewers get together for lunch, as Ernie Whalley
and I did this week, that's what we wanted to find.
Dobbins Wine Bistro
2004-07-09
I've just re-read my review of Dobbins in 1999. Funny to think five years
have passed since then, it seems like only yesterday. In that review I
began with my reminiscences of living in Herbert Street just around the
corner when I was a student and my memories of going to Dobbins in those
years of the early seventies. So now I have three sets of memories: the
ones from the seventies, the ones from the nineties and armed with this
perspective of years, I'll tell you about my memories of Dobbins in the
noughties.
Chapter One
2004-07-02
Anyone who has ever done anything creative will know the feeling: a lingering
suspicion that talent and recognition are not necessarily linked. We all
have favourite bands or musicians who we think are impossibly gifted,
yet whose commercial success is almost non-existent. It's the same with
writers, it's the same with artists. We end up suspecting that the greatest
talents are frequently overlooked. Why this should be so is a puzzle.
The converse - that minor talents often become huge commercial successes
- is equally puzzling. Just what fans the flames of adulation is unclear
and will probably remain so.
The Organic Cafe
2004-06-25
It's not my fault, I can't help it. It must be some sort of pre-determined
biological imperative. It's inexorable, ineluctable, remorseless - I'm
turning into a grumpy old man. I get grumpy with government over-regulation,
I get grumpy when I find motorways with 40 mph speed limits, I get grumpy
with the Luas and I get very grumpy when people mess with the food I eat.
I simply don't want pre-packaged, pre-flavoured, pre-parcooked foods.
I want natural, simple, honest and genuine food. There are times when
I shake my fist hopelessly at the heavens and cry out 'Is that so much
to bloody ask for?'
Osborne's
2004-06-18
The search for Rosemount's Young Restaurant Manager of the Year continues
apace, this week finding me and fellow judges in Osborne's in Portmarnock
where Sebastien Patry nurtures his customers with Gallic charm and much
savoir faire. I took the scenic drive over the hills to get there
to meet Sandra Doody and Ernie Whalley, who were my fellow judges for
the night. It's been a while since I've been out to Portmarnock and I'd
forgotten how pretty it can look on a sunny evening.
Il Baccaro & Vermilion
2004-06-11
This was a good week for ethnicity; not I hasten to add because of the
referendum, but for ethnic food. More specifically, the ethnic food that
I ate. My first adventure was entirely of the accidental kind: there was
an hour to kill before a movie we wanted to see in the IFC, so we wandered
into Meeting House Square looking for a snack, which is where we found
'Il Baccaro'.
Romano's Ristorante
2004-06-04
I've been a country boy for so long now that I've come to know the signs
of the changing seasons that are manifested in the natural world. As summer
comes upon us I take note of these portents: the fully leafed trees, the
swooping swallows, the buzz of a milliard insects in the air or the first
abandoned mattress on the side of the Sugar Loaf. All these have been
part of my bucolic lore for years, but recently I've come to notice a
new sign of summer - the first cyclists on the Calary Bog. When you find
a cluster of them in pink stretch Lycra, heads down with effort, a bunch
of what looks like bananas strapped to their heads, you know that summer
has arrived.
French's
2004-05-28
One thing we've all noticed is that restaurant prices are remorselessly
rising. I've argued elsewhere that that's not entirely the restaurateurs'
fault; huge increases in insurances, government levies on employment,
high wages, high VAT rates, expensive raw materials and ever-increasing
excises on alcohol all combine to add to your bill. But it's also true
that the general quality of food in restaurants is rising. Wherever I've
been around the country the standards in restaurants are vastly higher
than ever they were. I won't bore you with tales of meals encountered
in previous decades, I'll just say that I'm glad that the days of over-boiled
cabbage and flour-thickened ox-tail soup are gone the way of the dinosaurs
into a deserved extinction.
Glin Castle
2004-05-14
I've always been fond of big houses, maybe because my formative years
were spent in one. Something about the noble proportions of the rooms
lends a sense of nobility to the inhabitants by some kind of architectural
osmosis. Big houses have a character all of their own, not just because
of their history, but because the very fabric of the house - its atmosphere
- defines behaviours in whoever visits.
Citron
2004-05-07
You could argue that being self-referential is no more than amour-propre,
but what the hell, I'll do it anyway. Back in 2002 I wrote this about
a restaurant: 'Our maitre was the epitome of hosting skills. And if you're
wondering why you haven't yet heard of this wonderful food, it's because
the Vico has only recently obtained the services of Stephen McAllister,
a young and very gifted chef about whom we'll no doubt be hearing a lot
more of in the future.' Prophetic words, that's the same Stephen who's
the permanent chef de cuisine in RTE's 'The Restaurant'.
Carrig House
2004-04-30
It's been a week for food awareness. The Green Party put together their
conference on GM food, Global Vision has been involved with seminars on
the same subject and just possibly Irish consumers are starting to think
carefully about the ramifications of allowing our government to let loose
the GM genie. As part of the Convergence week there was a Slow Food banquet
in Dublin, attended by luminaries like J.P. Dunleavy, who has just announced
that henceforth his farm will be GM free. These may all be no more than
straws in the wind, but if enough people sit up and take notice of what
big agri-business is trying to slip past us, perhaps we can make a difference.
The Chatham Brasserie
2004-04-23
Just in case you think that being a restaurant reviewer is an endless
round of hard work, gastronomic hardship and drudgery, let me tell you
that there is the occasional perk. Not often, perhaps infrequent, but
just enough for the occasional indulgence. One such gourmet intemperance
took place this week in the Radisson Saint Helen's, that rather spledid
house that sits opposite Foster's Avenue amid its manicured lawns and
formal gardens. The occasion was a dinner hosted by O'Brien's Off Licenses
designed expressly to showcase the wines of the Domaines Baron de Rothschild.
The family of Rothschild needs little introduction, the dynasty has been
a successful one for several centuries now, but its renown has always
been in the spheres of banking and wines. Two of Bordeaux's greatest chateaux,
Lafite and Mouton, are part of the group.
Miso
2004-04-16
I confess. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I still smoke, forgive
me please you guardians of my health and welfare. Okay, I'm no longer
the 40 a day addict that I once was, I'm down to two or three a day and
up to now those were mostly in the evening, after dinner. But that's all
changed, that avenue of pleasure is now firmly closed off. After dinner
isn't what it was. No lingering over a second espresso any more, now the
only option is on with the overcoat and out into the great outdoors. Frankly
there's not much fun in that, so I suspect my future behaviour will be
to eat and run home early. I do try to take comfort from the realisation
that the state is keen to look after me: sensible rules like this and
the 40 mph motorway can only make life safer for everyone. With luck and
determination we can soon catch up with North Korea in the Interventionist
State Stakes.
