Sally's blog

A video portrait of one of Dublin's most innovative and influential butchers shops. Fenelon's was the first butcher's shop to open in a Dublin shopping centre and today is one of the last independent retailers still satisfying customers needs with exceptional service whilst continuing to develop as tastes change.

Read other articles in Megabites...

William Barry visits Ballyshannon....

Less than 3,000 people live in Ballyshannon in Co. Donegal. It’s the birthplace of musician Rory Gallagher, and also Hazel Blair, mother of the former British PM Tony, and it’s also the birth place of the Donegal Brewing Company.

Grainne Walsh, Metalman Brewery

What inspired you to make beer?
I love beer :-) I think it's a thoroughly under-rated drink, it's often cast aside as the poorer sibling of wine, and under-appreciated in terms of the variety and complexity of flavourings that you can find in beer. What better way to try and fix this than to start making it?

A wee while back we suggested that there was a Beer-Bread-Bacon revolution going on in Irish artisan food.

Visit the Saturday morning market at Harry's Restaurant at Bridgend, Donegal, and you can see that we were a wee bit right, and a whole lot wrong. Yes there is beer - thank you, Kinnegar Brewery. Yes, there is bread - thank you Slow Food Co. Yes, there is bacon - thank you Hamilton's Farm.

Diana Henry's books are dumbfounding.
She wrote a book on Nordic food that was warm and cosy. She wrote a book on preserving that was accessible and fun. Her book on Mediterranean food brought Africa slap-bang into the equation.
And now she has written a book on healthful eating that is lush, rich and bounteous.

Colette O'Donovan, from Bantry's charming, traditional West Cork Irish Pub, The Snug. It's a place where the pints are perfect and are just the ticket with Maurice's splendid country cooking.

Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe House is the most important person in the history of the Irish state.
Her fifty years of service to Irish food and hospitality makes Eamon de Valera’s twenty-odd years as Taoiseach pale in comparison, and her rigorous certainty and unwavering moral vision is unmatched by another other politician or public figure in Irish life.
In addition, the international respect she commands cannot be matched by any other Irish man or woman.

We were so impressed by the exposition of the Cheeseboard in Browns, that we recorded it. You can hear it in the Soundbite above. If any restaurant offers a better explanation of a cheeseboard, we have yet to hear it.

If you seek the ham sandwich of your dreams, you will find it in the Legenderry Tearooms, just beside the Guildhall. Made with sublime sourdough bread, sandwiching superlative ham and fantastic cheese and chutney, it is the very definition of how to ennoble simple ingredients and make them into something special. The team here take every detail and amp it up to the max, so the vegetables and salad leaves are bursting with vitality, the crab salad with Guinness brown bread is benchmark, the soups and stews are soulful and satisfying.

Kevin Pyke is yet another guy from the North West who is way, way ahead of the curve. Stroll down to Queens Quay, hard by the river, and you will find Pyke ‘n’ Pommes, the food truck of your dreams. As we sat in our car eating The Codfather, the Notorious P.I.G and the Legenderry Burger, there was nothing less than stupefied silence, as we all thought the same thing: how on earth can this food, which has been finished in an old British Leyland truck parked beside a river, possibly be so good? This is restaurant quality food, this is cutting-edge food, this is magnificent food.