Bruce Mulcahy

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Quietly, surely, confidently, whilst everyone was mostly looking somewhere else, Bruce Mulcahy climbed to the top of the culinary tree.
It's where he belongs, and his confidence today means he inhabits the space comfortably, rubbing shoulders with the best, most creative cooks of his generation.
You can see that confidence not only in his food, but also in the fact that Mulcahy doesn't bother with any of this modern tech fandango. No tweets, no Facebook presence, none of that push-yourself-forward nonsense. Bruce Mulcahy is a chef-proprietor and he runs Mulcahy's the way chefs used to run their restaurants: by getting into the kitchen and getting the pans hot.
Ironically, for such a devoted chef, it was a spell away from his own pans that gave him some perspective on the way he was cooking, gave him a distance to look down from the tree and examine critically how he was working. The perspective he was afforded didn't change the way he cooks, it simply let him alter the way he structures his food.
His work was always somewhat punkish, but today it’s not so afraid to show the classical antecedents that framed the punk mohican. His veal cheek ravioli would thrill you if you ate it in a Ligurian enoteca. His beef tartare with tarragon purée and toasted sourdough would make Fernand Point smile, before M. Point wolfed down the plate.
With both these dishes, you can see what has happened in Mulcahy’s: the attention to detail is awesome, every cube of beef is the same microscopic size, the toothsomeness of the pasta is a joy, its rendition so perfect, the contrast with the unctuous meat filling so precisely judged.
Mr Mulcahy's food has a narrative, and the narrative is how Mr Mulcahy has changed over more than a decade in his own restaurant. Originally his food was about what he had learned. Today, his food is about what he has learnt from what he had learned. The punk now acknowledges the masters of the past, especially in classic deserts such a sublime chocolate fondant or a dynamite passionfruit soufflé.
Tartare; ravioli; fondant; soufflé; daube; roulade – Mr Mulcahy takes the classical alphabet of the culinary past and brings it right up-to-the-moment, takes it right up to the top of the tree.

Mulcahy's Restaurant, Kenmare, County Kerry
+ 353 64 6642383