My Working Week
Bridgestone Cover Photos by Mike O'Toole
Next month sees the publication of the 2001 Bridgestone 100 Best Guides the 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland and the 100 Best Places to stay in Ireland and writing books such as the Bridgestone Guides means that we have to behave in much the same way as marketing theorists: we spend our time being "cool hunters" as they are called in the trade, people who want to know where the next exciting innovation, the next wave of energy, is coming from. The other part of the job, then, is describing those who maintain their energy and their standards. So, here is a recent research week in the life of the 2001 Bridgestone 100 Best Guides.
Monday. Cork city, lunch in Pi. Hugely ambitious, the
room is simply gorgeous, drawing on 1960's style influences updated from
the original. Service is keen and enthusiastic; the music is extraordinarily
good (and because of the scale of the space, they are able to play it fairly
loud). But will they be able to unify all the diverse elements and disciplines
in order to make it all work seamlessly? After just a few weeks they seem
to be getting there, though the cooking has yet to find a very personal
focus. I enquire about the totally cool music as I leave. A member of staff
helpfully and gamely jumps up on the counter to check who it is. It's a
track by Courtney Pine. Hang on a minute; I don't like Courtney Pine...
Next stop Portlaoise (for food guide writers, geography consists solely
of food stops. We know there is historical sites and fascinating natural
elements out there somewhere...) I'm here to check out Ivyleigh House. Dinah
Campion opened last year, and from the minute she began to take guests,
Bridgestone readers were sending a steady stream of happy letters. It's
easy to see why.
On to Dublin, where I arrive at 7pm. Major traffic jam in Stephen's Green.
"Is that normal?" I ask the waiters in The Commons restaurant.
Very tellingly, they reply, "You should see it on Fridays!" Dublin
life is now a question of tolerance, of relativity. It should be a question
of outrage: Road Outrage.
Aidan Byrne is cooking in The Commons, and cooking very well indeed. Whilst
I generally incline to the advice handed down by Shaun Hill that "mid-meal
sorbets are a bad idea" it's good to see a chef making something subtle
like milk and tarragon sorbet. Great canneloni of sweetbreads, one of those
foods ordinary decent people wouldn't dream of eating, whilst critics order
them every time. Rich cooking, and accomplished, and very promising.
Tuesday.
After a meeting to deliberate on the shortlist for the Grants of Ireland/Moreau
Chablis fish cookery awards it's off to lunch with a friend in Chapter One.
Ross Lewis seems to me a cook at the top of his game, the food is subtle
and perfectly executed and the room is jumping. Declan Maxwell runs f-o-h,
at which he is nothing less than a genius. This is the magic part of the
job: when the entire beautiful choreography of a restaurant works seemingly
by instinct. An olive oil ice cream is to die for. If they take Barbra Streisand
off the stereo I'll come every day.
A drive out to Kells, and en route a chat with Niamh Colgan in The Old Workhouse.
All we talk about is food, and then on to Boltown House, and the sort of
country cooking from Susan Wilson that is hard to find: great judgement,
especially in a chicken and watercress soup which is only mega, superb fillet
of pork, and a lemon soufflé that is right on the money. Darling old house.
Wednesday. Off to Athlone after breakfast. They are
planting rather a lot of New Zealand grasses in Westmeath this year. Much
better aesthetic judgement is shown in Annie McNamara and Mary McCullough's
beautiful new Left Bank Bistro, which has moved down the hill to a stylishly
fab new room. The place is decked with flowers and cards from customers
wishing the girls good luck with the move, which tells you all you need
to know about how affectionately this restaurant and its owners are regarded.
Super cooking, and brown bread that I would walk a country mile for.
Then back to Dublin, and dinner in DIT Cathal Brugha Street, cooked and
organised by the students of the new Culinary Arts degree course. This is
a revelation: these guys are so cool and confident that I am astonished
at their abilities. The new generation of Irish culinarians are blossoming
here.
Thursday. A morning spent in The Irish Times working
on an article, then lunch with Elizabeth Field, who is working with us on
the new Bridgestones, in Clarets, a revamped room on Leeson Street. I have
long admired Alan O'Reilly as one of the most progressive restaurant thinkers,
and this new room is a joy. Robert Haughton's cooking is spot on, evocative
and classical: skate with beurre noisette; duck rillette; pot-roasted chicken.
Overhear a customer making a stupid complaint about his daube of beef and
reckon he probably expected a Shhtteeak! The dope is handled with great
grace by the staff: I would have hurled him out on his ear.
Before dinner in Roly's, I give the final lecture in the Royal Dublin Society's
autumn lecture series. Lovely crowd who tolerate me with excessive kindness.
We sit down in Roly's at 10pm, 6 of us, and the energy in the room is nothing
less than awesome: there really is nowhere else like this place, the original
rollercoaster restaurant. Great food.
Friday. If you have to face a 6-hour drive from Dublin to West Cork through the traffic and the floods, then try to eat lunch in Thornton's before you set out: it will save your sanity. Kevin Thornton's cookery has emerged into a sensual and provocative maturity that is nothing less than profound, and Orla Broderick, who will join us as another Bridgestone Contributing Editor, and I are bowled over. Simplicity and complexity are seamlessly conjoined in this food: celeriac and wild mushroom soup; white asparagus mousse; hake with Jurancon sauce; roast mallard with honey and pistachio; an astonishing tarte tatin; beautiful chocolate and hazlenut mousse. Traffic jams? Floods? Six hours in the car? Good cooking heals all these things.
Saturday. Into the garden to pick up wood, shovel out the incinerator, and to hack clear some ground whilst standing in a fast-flowing stream. A little sanity after the curious abnormality of being a food critic.
Bridgestone Cover Photos by Mike O'Toole
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text © John & Sally McKenna
illustrations ©
Ken Buggy
