Sally's blog

The good people of Longford don’t like to remember 2007.
2007, you see, was the year before Gary O’Hanlon took up residence in the kitchens of VM restaurant, the culinary powerhouse at the centre of James and Beryl Keaney’s lovely mid-18 century country house, Viewmount House.
And the culinary history of modern Longford divides into the pre-GO’H period, and the post-GO’H period, the pre-VM era and the post-VM era.

Michael O’Meara’s fish cookery is the holy ground where classical cooking colludes with comfort food.
Using pristine west coast fish, Mr O’Meara concentrates on cooking the fish to perfection and, then, like a busy matchmaker, he finds the perfect suitor for his chosen fish - some lime leaf and dilisk butter for haddock; a leek and cream sauce for cod.
That cod just loves the sweet and creamy leeks. The lime leaf and dilisk shine a spotlight on the delicious haddock.

There are five star hotels and, then, there’s The Europe in Killarney. While the gargantuan and somewhat severe building gives little away as you arrive, the interior is truly spectacular - from the double height reception area with glass walls overlooking the McGillycuddy Reeks, to the delightfully kitsch mirrored bar, to the numerous lounges and comfortable spaces you can disappear away to – this hotel really is like no other.

Galway’s Food on the Edge festival was enough to make you weep.

Keith Boyle is moving fast. A year ago, he was cooking up over a pub in Ballybricken, in the old heart of Waterford. Today, he has a capacious big room on the quays in Waterford, and the reputation Mr Boyle garnered in Ballybricken means the place is filled most nights of the week.
He’s a hungry chef. Hungry for ideas. Hungry for new techniques. He is alive to and obsessed with the joy of cooking, and he pulls like a dog: no effort is too much.

At its best, a restaurant’s cuisine should act as a mirror of the place in which the food is produced, cooked and served.
The food on the plate should reveal the work of the people whose craft brings forth the foods you are eating. And it should offer you the sense of the place in which these people work.
The cooking in Aniar, in Galway’s West End, does exactly that.
Just as a quilt reveals its maker, Jp McMahon and his kitchen team unveil all the people whose efforts lie behind their work.

While this restaurant is still recommended, please note there has been a change of chef since this review was published.

You’d hardly expect a property finance expert and a chemical engineer to end up opening a dreamy patisserie in Kilkenny. But, with Laura and Rory Gannon, that’s exactly what’s happened in order to fashion CakeFace, their elegant café and cake shop in Irishtown, Kilkenny.

Laura may have started in property, but it wasn’t long before the call of the kitchen led her to Ballymaloe, where she worked with Rory O’Connell, and then it was onwards to France for both of them to learn the craft of the pastry chef, before stints at The Savoy and The Connaught in London to refine their craft.

From French provincial cooking to experimental twenty-first century flamboyance in two starter dishes. That’s what chef Paul Cullen pulls off in Kilkenny’s funky-as-all-get-out Rive Gauche restaurant.
The French provincial bit is an Escoffier-type take on coquilles St Jacques, a dreamy delight of scallops baked with cream, Gruyere and pieces of crispy bacon, ringed with duchesse potatoes. It’s a classic dish from the century before last, and Mr Cullen delivers it perfectly.

Book Review: Diana Henry: Simple (Mitchell Beazley)