Over years of reviewing restaurants I’ve learned that keeping an open mind is a crucial part of the job. Sometime back in the mid 90’s, fo example, I remember pulling up to Eugene O’ Callaghan’s restaurant, somewhere deep in Co. Wexford – a site that really wasn’t that dissimilar to a truck-stop, with a fish and chip shop, a pub and Mr O’ Callaghan’s restaurant.
The Grand Canal starts its journey at the Dublin Docklands and traverses the southside of Dublin, marking out the extremities of Ballsbridge, Ranelagh, Rathmines and Harold’s Cross. The canal path is always moving with people walking and exercising and, at this time of year, the piles of crusty brown and gold leaves along this tree-lined section of the waterway look like an autumnal postcard scene.
Athlone has a buzz about it. Unlike many other provincial towns, hard hit by the economic crisis and slow to recover, Athlone seems to have found its mojo. Walk along the main strip of the town that leads to the bridge over the Shannon, and new openings and new renovations are bringing energy to the town centre.
Which means Feargal and Fiona O'Donnell have chosen just the right time to bring their feted Fatted Calf restaurant into the centre of the action.
No one makes a taco like Shannen Keane. No one makes a wrap like Ms Keane. And no one makes a Reuben like the Diva Reuben you can enjoy here, in the newly-reopened Diva, in little Ballinspittle. You might say its Ms Keane’s American heritage – she’s from Seattle – that helps her glide with such ease over these dishes, but it’s more than that: she shows respect to things others believe don’t need to be taken seriously. She knows that making a great taco – with flank steak, with Korean seasoning – is a matter of balance, restraint, experience – and the result is one of the best tacos.
We’re headed to Jose Avillez’s Mini Bar.
That's always a smart line-up in a restaurant – five starters; fine mains; four puds, and a cheeseboard on the bench as the substitute.
Put this line up on a single sheet, dot it with smart mantras – “Let's connect, and turn off our phones”; “Love Food: Hate Waste”, “Proceeds from still or sparking water will be donated to the Number 4 project...” and there is only one place in Ireland you could be: Ard Bia, at Nimmo's, at Spanish Arch, in Galway city.
When opportunity knocks, the capable answer the call, and so when the previous operators of the well-known Odessa Restaurant foundered, it was restaurateur and chef Temple Garner – along with chef Eamonn Connors and FOH Anthony Remedy – who were able to relaunch the restaurant as Taco Taco.
Garner has a storied past and is well known in Dublin where he previously ran the kitchens in The Mermaid Café, Town Bar and Grill, and Dillinger’s before opening his own restaurant, San Lorenzo’s, on South Great Georges Street.
Peter Greaney is a smashing cook. His food in Foodworks is clean, smart and clever, the work of a chef who has quietly and patiently mastered the art of the restaurateur, who successfully navigated the move from uptown into a big space right in the centre of Kilkenny city, and who now runs one of the great rooms in Kilkenny city.
Inchydoney Island
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