November is Food Month at the Irish Times and this year we welcome chef, TV presenter and author Mark Moriarty as our new recipe columnist. Moriarty is a former winner of the San Pellegrino Young Chef global culinary competition, an achievement that launched him on a journey around the world and made him Ireland’s answer to the celebrity chef. His first weekly column for The Irish Times appeared this weekend.
100 Great Places to Eat
On Friday we published our invaluable list of 100 Great Places to Eat. It has been an exciting year for openings, with 17 new restaurants making their debuts, ranging from fine dining and neighbourhood bistros to a top-end omakase Japanese restaurant.
Europe on a Plate
Last week we published a list of the best gourmet getaways for food lovers. Rome, Paris and Copenhagen are famous for food but what about some alternatives? Picking the less obvious places might be kinder on your pocket too, with cheaper flights, better value dinners, more options for local accommodation and less demand for tables in the best restaurants. Here are five destinations for you to consider that prove sometimes the road less travelled can leave you very well fed.
Restaurant Reviews
Expect plenty of restaurant reviews over Food Month. So far we’ve looked at Grapevine in Dalkey, a busy south Dublin eatery with tasty food and an excellent wine list, and Bullet Duck and Dumpling on the city’s northside, a restaurant that specialises in Hong Kong-style roasted meats cooked at searing temperatures.
How to Drink Better
Wine critic John Wilson looks at wine fermentation, a process that has been used for thousands of years but one which wine-makers have only learned how to control in the last century. Wilson breaks down the age-old method thus: “Farmer picks grapes, and jumps up and down on them to release grape juice. Yeasts on the skins or floating in the air start eating the sugars, turning them into alcohol. When the sugar runs out, or the must reaches a certain level of alcohol, the yeasts die off, leaving a delicious drink - wine!”
Recipes
We will also be publishing loads of recipes all month. This week there has been an easy to prepare, tasty and comforting dinner dish from Majken Bech Bailey; Daniel Hannigan’s pan-fried gnocchi with sweetcorn and ‘nduja; and James Gabriel Martin’s Carbonara with a twist.
Coming Up
Stanley Tucci’s perfect martini goes up against Irish versions of the classic cocktail; Mary Jennings looks at what to eat after a winter run; we look at top tables worth travelling to: the best overseas restaurants this year; staying at home, there’s a selection of the best restaurants for a special occasion; and Geraldine Walsh looks at the issue of food addiction. As well as all that, we’ll have more restaurant reviews, top takeaways, dinner dash recipes and an interview with Siobhán O’Dea, the 20-year-old baker from Donegal.
