Joan Power enjoys a double-first in her culinary makeup: not only does her work exhibit the astuteness and purity that comes from a Ballymaloe School background, but she was also born into the business, with her folks running the Candlelight Inn, where Ms Power first took up the reins of managing her own kitchen.
The twin strands of influences are evident in what she cooks, and the way she cooks and serves it, and she has a comprehensive view of what a food business can achieve. So, The Lemon Tree is both a café, and a weekend evening restaurant during the summer season. It is both a shop, and a catering company. Joan Power cooks, and she also teaches cookery. You can come for breakfast, or an 8-course tasting menu dinner. There is food to eat in house, and food to take away for dinner or for the freezer.
All these dualities make for happy customers, and Ms Power has been making Waterford locals and visitors happy for almost a decade now. Her cooking swerves towards a natural sweetness – crumbed cod with chive champ and oven-roasted tomatoes; daube of their own beef with leek champ; 6hour belly pork with chorizo potato cake; bread and butter pudding – and recent menus have shown a vivid imagination and ambition: a celeric, dilisk and potato gratin with sole; leeks, nettles and Knockdrinna goat's cheese in cabbage rolls; a nori and coconut broth with shellfish. Ms Power is finding new and exciting elements to broaden her culinary palette, and The Lemon Tree is always blossoming.
