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we're giving up lunch for february · 23 January 2012
In an early bout of lenten sacrifice – or a late new year’s resolution, perhaps – we’re giving up lunch for the month of February.
As well as changes to the format of the dinner menu, we want to do some tweaking to the style of the lunch menu, and will be using the month of February to work on the structure of the menu, try out new dishes and train a couple of new chefs.
The dates for your diary then -lunch WILL be served on Friday 27th and Saturday 28th January, then we will be serving dinner only for four weeks. Friday and Saturday lunches will return on the 2nd March, and we’ll be posting the new menu here a few days before that.
New dinner menu format for 2012 · 23 January 2012
If there’s anything good you can say about the sleepy month of January, it might be that it’s a good time for reflection, analysis and making grand plans for the future. Each of the last three Januarys has seen changes to at least one of the menu structures, staffing and/or opening hours here in Cafe Paradiso; and this year we’ve been doing some more hard thinking.
One of the most satisfying aspects of 2011 – besides simply being still standing at the end of it – has been the success of our short three-course menu that has been running alongside the longer a la carte dinner menu every evening. Leave well alone then, you might say. However, if we’d said that in 2009 or 2010, we might not be here now, pontificating.
One of the predictable but contrary effects of the limited choice menu has been the concentration of our sales on a small number of dishes and, by extension, ingredients, while at the same time increasing the workload of the kitchen staff.
The first part of that made it difficult for us to be as flexible as we would like in terms of taking in the variety and volume of vegetables coming from Gortnanain Farm, though we got better at managing it as the year went on.
At the same time, the kitchen has been working longer and harder to maintain the two all-evening menus plus the early pre-theatre one. Not that they’ve been grumpy about it, you understand. But, frankly, it’s true to say we made it through last year because the chefs worked out of their skins, beyond the call of duty and all that. To avoid losing critical staff, sacrificing standards or over-simplifying the food, we’ve been looking at ways to find a better balance for the year ahead.
The result of the 2012 January think-in, which involved a lot of spiral notebooks and the snapping of fiercely sharpened pencils – is the decision to crossbreed the set and a la carte menus, effectively turning the a la carte into a long set menu with no restrictions, and the option to have two or three courses.
The ultimate objective is to be able to carry on cooking to the standards we’ve set for ourselves, and offering it at the lowest price we can.
We’re pitching this new composite menu at a price for three courses that is substantially lower than the sum of individually priced dishes in the old a la carte format. Yes, a little higher than the limited choice set menu of 2011, but we hope you’ll agree that the unlimited choice makes it even more attractive.
This comes into play this week on Thursday 26th January. You can see the new all-evening menu here, with the options to have two or three courses priced at €33 and €40 respectively. There will also be the option to have two courses plus our ice cream of the month – currently the amazing damson mascarpone – for €36.
The pre-theatre menu continues at the same price as before, available from 5.30pm to 7pm every evening.
Valentine's Day menu, 2012 · 20 January 2012
On Tuesday 14th February this year, we will be offering our regular pre-theatre menu until 7pm, after which we will switch to the following set menu of three courses plus a glass of prosecco to start and chocolate truffles with coffee to finish, priced at €49.
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proscecco
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chestnut & ricotta ravioli in truffled butter with crisped leeks and gabriel cheese
avocado & cucumber sushi with tempura of aubergine & carrot, pickled ginger, wasabi and soy dipping sauce
tartlet of caramelized beetroot & Bluebell Falls fresh goat’s cheese with salsa verde and olive-crushed potato
blood orange, fennel & Ardsallagh fresh goat’s cheese with pomegranate citrus dressing
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panfried artichokes with baked ricotta gnocchi, olive & walnut salsa, lemon cream, spinach and caramelised beetroot
sweet chilli-glazed panfried tofu with asian greens in a coconut & lemongrass broth, soba noodles and a gingered aduki bean wonton
panfried oyster mushrooms in cider butter with a timbale of roast celeriac, fennel, red onion & pecans, and parsnip chips
soufflé gratin of squash & leeks with tomato-ginger broth, smoked almond praline and spiced aubergine rolls
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dark chocolate silk cake with vanilla pod ice cream
strawberry, passionfruit & basil pavlova
lemon tart, damson ice cream, hazelnut praline
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chocolate truffles, coffee, tea
VAT increase January 2012 · 3 January 2012
The top VAT rate increases from 21% to 23% from the 1st January 2012 and in the restaurant business that means a small increase in the price of wine, beer, soft drinks etc. However, Cafe Paradiso will be absorbing this increase so our prices going into 2012 remain untouched by the December budget.
2011 was a tough but good year for Cafe Paradiso, one during which we worked hard to offer a good balance between quality and value, and we will be taking that same attitude into 2012.
Besides, the last thing we would want to do is discourage our customers from having a glass or three with dinner.
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Christmas 2011 · 19 November 2011
Paradiso will be closed for a short holiday over the Christmas season, from Saturday 24th to Wednesday 28th, inclusive, re-opening on Thursday 29th December.
In the interest of keeping Paradiso accessible and affordable through the Christmas period, this year we’ve hit on the brilliant strategy of simply carrying on with our current menu formats, including the pre-theatre and all-evening set menu that have been so popular right through 2011. Of course the food will be bursting with comforting seasonal flavours and the spirit of goodwill and celebration will fill the room. There just won’t be any shrieking office parties.
Finally, we will be running a normal service on New Year’s Eve, but taking last bookings at 9pm, so that the staff working the evening will be home (or wherever else they might want to be!) before midnight.
The full Christmas period schedule is detailed below –
Tuesday 20th – dinner
Wednesday 21st – dinner
Thursday 22nd – dinner
Friday 23rd – lunch and dinner
CLOSED 24th to 28th inclusive
Thursday 29th – dinner
Friday 30th – dinner
Saturday 31st – lunch and dinner
Food&Wine Dinner · 15 September 2011
Last Monday, the 12th September, we hosted a dinner for Food&Wine magazine, a showcase event you might call it. We’re always a bit nervous about getting involved with things like that, our natural instinct being to just let them pass by and carry on doing what we do day by day, week by week and season by season. But there was something irresistible about the timing of this one, given that it gave us a chance to do a showcase dinner at a prefect time of the growing season. Well, it would have been perfect if the summer that never happened wasn’t one of the weirdest growing seasons in recent memory. Still, it hit a couple of unpredictable highs. One was the artichokes. I’ve written here before about Ultan Walsh’s artichokes, particularly when he moved his crop from one part of the field to another in 2010.
Well, that smart idea went up the Swanee when the ferocious winter killed off most of the plants. Undaunted, Ultan decide to get better, feistier seed and, in an act of ferocious faith, planted an even bigger area of artichokes last Spring. Here’s a thing about artichokes I didn’t know, or knew but forgot – the first year you plant them they crop in late summer, then subsequently revert to being spring vegetables. Honestly, you’d have to be a dedicated farmer to keep up with that kind of carry-on, so it’s as well we have one on board. Chefs can hardly figure out what’s going on in the next five minutes, so it’s as well someone else is managing the source. The upshot of the artichoke transplant and resowing meant we had a supply of beauties through August and September, and Food& Wine caught the last of the picking.
We braised the artichokes in white wine and stock and served them with a citrus aioli, mint oil, paprika-flavoured walnut crumb and the first of the autumn crop of borlotti beans from…where else but the mecca that is Gortnanain Farm.
The lucky crowd of forty diners also got the tail-end of the summer squash flower season. For years now, Ultan has been growing various squash plants especially for their flowers for Paradiso, moving from courgettes through a couple of other experiments before settling on a squash whose name I can never hold in my brain for more than five minutes. It’s Italian, bullet-shaped, like an elongated yellow pattypan or scallopini, and it produces the best flowers for cooking – pretty, large, firm and possibly tasting of the sweet nectar of summer sunshine. The miracle is that the plants produce beautiful flowers even in Irish summers. We stuffed them with Knockalara fresh cheese made from summer-grazed sheep’s milk in Cappoquin, fried them in a delicate tempura batter and served them on a little pile of basil-scented scallopini with a sauce that tasted of complex sweet and acidic sunshine but consisted only of sungold tomatoes slowly cooked for hours. Nothing else. I learned that from the man who grows them, add nothing and let them speak for themselves. If ever there was a dish that expressed the beauty of summer in Ireland, it is that one. Plants gather up the precious minutes of warmth and light and make sunshine from scarcity, like children holidaying near windy beaches in Kerry or West Cork.
That was followed by a dish focussed on chanterelle and hedgehog mushrooms gathered on the hills in the Cork-Tipp-Limerick border country by the intrepid forager family headed up by a woman who can only be known by the name of Mary Mushrooms. The long version of the story would take pages, the short version is Mary was at the train station in Cork when she said she would be with the quantity of mushrooms she promised, and wearing a spectacular hat she made herself, probably while waiting for the damn things to grow in this most peculiar of summers. We cooked them in a butter flavoured with reduced cider, cinnamon, nutmeg and a hint of clove, and plopped them over a timbale of potato and the last of the summer chard leaves, with some grilled figs on the side.
The last course was blackberries, was always going to be, given the time of year, a curd tart served with a simple ice cream of buffalo ricotta made by Sean Ferry – he of the legendary Gabriel and Desmond cheese – with milk from Toby Simmond’s herd of buffalo in Toonsbridge near Macroom. Buffalo in Macroom? Why not, it’s rebel country, no better place for them. Look out for their mozzarella when production gets up to full production next year.
For the kitchen, and the dining room too, it was an interesting and reflective way to spend a Monday night, a way to say this is what we do and this is now, this moment in our work. Tomorrow will be different, and next week it will be autumn, the summer produce gone and so we will have to adjust our minds and our work to new ingredients. Leeks, pumpkins and roots are on the horizon and Paradiso is looking forward to the changes they bring. It was an extra day’s work for everyone involved but one that we all embraced as a way to pass from one season to the next.
Next year, we plan to host similar seasonal tasting dinners at peak times of each season. There will be one special evening in spring, summer, autumn and winter. Keep an eye out here for announcements about dates, or sign up to the mailing list to get advance notice of dates.
NEW SET PRICE DINNER MENU · 15 January 2011
You know that feeling of confusion and sweaty pandemonium generated by the mad rush to make it out of the house in time to catch the early bird menu shut-off time? The ‘carry on or go home for beans on toast?’ vexed conversation in the car when you realise you’re not going to make it?
Well, fear not, help is at hand. Take a few deep breaths, get that lipstick on straight and take a leisurely stroll to Cafe Paradiso, where we are now offering a set price dinner menu every evening – Tuesday to Saturday – from 7pm, priced at €35 for three courses.
What’s more, to streamline everything we are now also offering our pre-theatre menu on Saturdays.
Here then is a summary of the dinner menu options, with links to sample menus:
A La Carte Dinner Menu – Tuesday to Saturday, 5.30 to 10pm
Pre-Theatre Dinner Menu – Tuesday to Saturday, 5.30 to 7pm
Set Price Dinner Menu – Tuesday to Saturday, 7pm to 10pm
Wines of the Month for January · 13 January 2011
We’ve got a couple of lovely Italians in as wines of the month to kick off the new year, both interesting variations on familiar grape varieties.
The white is the cutely named Ciu Ciu Tebaldo 2009 from the Marche region of Italy, a blend of Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay. The much derided C-grape brings a lovely buttery, round, mouth-filling character to the melon and peach flavours of pinot grigio, resulting in a wine with enough body and personality to stand up to almost any dish on the menu.
The red is a Salice Salentino 2009 from Masseria Pietrosa in Salento in the south of Italy. As you might expect from a hot climate wine, it has flavours of spiced figs, cocoa and dried fruit in a medium body of confident richness. A bit like drinking alcoholic chocolate-coated raisins, but that comment might have come from someone who had been munching on chocolate-coated raisins on the way to work. If you’re hankering after an Amarone, the rich flavours and long savoury finish of this Salice will deliver all your cravings at half the price. Perfect with winter food and a January budget.
Both wines of the month are priced at €6.50 a glass, €13 for a carafe and €26 a bottle.
Bridgestone 100 Best · 6 January 2011
We are delighted, honoured and tickled pink to be listed in both of John and Sally McKenna’s guide books coming out this month, the Bridgestone 100 Best Places to Eat in Ireland 2011 and the Bridgestone 100 Best Places to Stay in Ireland 2011. True, Paradiso has been listed every year since we opened in 1993, but it’s one listing that really feels like an honour, and one we’ve never taken for granted.
The simple reason for that is that the McKennas are genuinely passionate about food, fiercely independent thinkers, and have an unshakeable belief in the notion that good food is a vital part of the life of the country and of every local economy and culture within it. Every establishment listed in the Bridgestone guidebooks is doing more than cooking nice things to eat, they are actively involved in their local community, supporting small independent producers and creating something that adds to the value of living where they work. Mere menu-writing and paying lip service to fashionable ideas like local sourcing won’t get you in the Bridgestone guidebooks, and you can travel the country armed with the books trusting that the places you visit will be walking the walk more than talking themselves up.
This sense of authenticity and purpose is more important now than ever before, at a time when the shit-blowing fan that is the Irish economy is cranked up to eleven and the restaurant industry comes under huge pressure to survive by finding ways to lower prices in response to customer demand. To be blunt, the easiest way for a restaurant to lower prices is to buy cheaper ingredients, and buying cheaper usually means mass-produced imports, screwing your suppliers or dumping them altogether. It’s vital that in the frenzy for cheaper food we don’t end up killing off the wonderful network of independent producers that has blossomed in Ireland over the last couple of decades. Conscious spending is the key to this, supporting the people and places in your local economy that in turn support local producers and continue to pay them proper prices for their wonderful ingredients.
So grab yourself a copy of the Bridgestone guidebooks, hit the road and enjoy the wonderful food this country is still producing. They’re in the shops now and available from the McKenna’s website.
The other wonderful news from the Bridgestone guidebooks this year is that the Farmhouse B&B run by Paradiso’s vegetable growers, Ultan and Lucy of Gortnanain Farm has been listed in the 100 Best Places to Stay. That’s a massive compliment for both Gortnanain and the people who are tuned in enough to list them.
Happy holidays! · 24 December 2010
A very merry Christmas to all you Paradiso fans and customers, and may your holidays be full of good food, fine wines and a few tasty pints of porter.
Thanks to everyone who has supported us through 2010, and especially those brave souls who came out to play in the awful weather of the past few weeks.
We’re taking just a short break this year and we’d like to take this opportunity to remind you of our opening hours over the next couple of weeks –
Tuesday 21st – lunch and dinner
Wednesday 22nd – lunch and dinner
Thursday 23rd – lunch and dinner
Friday 24th – lunch
CLOSED 25th to 28th inclusive
Wednesday 29th – dinner
Thursday 30th – lunch and dinner
Friday 31st – lunch and dinner
Saturday 1st January – closed
Tuesday 4th January – back to normal service, ie dinner Tuesday to Saturday, Lunch Friday and Saturday
Christmas Opening Times · 3 December 2010
Paradiso will closed for a short break over Christmas, after lunch service on Christmas Eve, Friday 24th December, re-opening on Wednesday 29th.
We will be serving lunch every day – i.e. Tuesday to Friday – in the week before Chrismas, and a special set lunch menu will be available on those days, as well as the usual a la carte menu.
The full Christmas period schedule is detailed below –
Tuesday 21st – lunch and dinner
Wednesday 22nd – lunch and dinner
Thursday 23rd – lunch and dinner
Friday 24th – lunch
CLOSED 25th to 28th inclusive
Wednesday 29th – dinner
Thursday 30th – lunch and dinner
Friday 31st – lunch and dinner
Saturday 1st January – closed
Streetsmart campaign 2010 · 12 November 2010
The 2010 Streetsmart campaign was launched on Thursday in Cafe Paradiso. We have been participating in this annual event for a few years now, along with other leading restaurants in the city. It’s a simple idea but a very effective one – over the Chrismas period, the participating restaurants add €2 to each bill which is passed on directly and in full to the Simon Community to use in their campaign of support for homeless people in the city.
We have been strong supporters of this campaign since its beginning, believing that it is a wonderful way for restaurants and customers to come together to make a small but meaningful and practical contribution to the plight of homeless people.
This year, nine restaurants are taking part – Blair’s Inn, Cafe Paradiso, Continental Restaurant, Crawford Gallery Cafe, Hardwood Restaurant, Jacques, Les Gourmandises, Robert’s Cove Inn and Star Anise.
Here is a video of John McKenna’s speech at the launch of the campaign, in which he makes an eloquent and inspiring case for taking part in and supporting community based projects.
And a photo from the launch…
Gifts of quince and crab apples · 10 November 2010
Honestly, sometimes people just surprise you. I mean, a few kind words of appreciation for a decent dinner is a lovely thing, you go home smiling and we do too. But this week a couple went beyond the few words and brought us a gift. Two gifts, in fact, and not tied up in ribbons and bows either, but in huge crates, one laden with crab apples and the other with quince. So, big thanks to Roger and Liz for their contribution to our winter storeroom and for a gesture that is genuinely touching.
Geraldine is gleefully taking charge of the fruit, and will be working on them over the weekend to turn them into products that will keep over the winter months. Crab apple jelly makes a lovely spread on breakfast toast, but it also has uses in desserts and salad dressings. And while we have been serving poached quince in salads and desserts for a few weeks already, it’s really cool to get a decent supply of local ones. Some will hopefully be made into membrillo to serve with cheese.
Mind you, it’s tempting not to cook the quince at all. As they sit and wait, their sweet, floral scent is quietly filling the dining room. Which reminds me of a story I often tell when people ask what they should do with quince. A friend had a quince tree that only produced tiny fruit – golfball rather than giant pear size – and he always kept a bowlful in the kitchen, as you would a vase of flowers, for their scent. Because the fruit is so dense and dry, they shrivel very slowly rather than rot, and as they do their fragrance intensifies and lasts for ages. he took to keeping one in his coat pocket too, so that he always had a part of the countryside with him wherever he went. Meeting him on the street, you were as likely to get a “here, smell me quince” as an hello. So, if you want to know what to do with quince, poach the big ones, make jelly of a few more and save a few for the fruit bowl and one for your pocket.
November wines of the month · 7 November 2010
This month’s featured white is from the Crios label in Mendoza, Argentina, distributed by Wines Direct. Made by Susana Balbo from the indigenous Torrontes grape, this 2009 vintage is a wonderful example of how good the grape can be when the wine is properly balanced. Starting with aromas of honey, oranges, quince and elderflowers, you would think from the nose that it is going to be a sweet wine. Then, as a little of the honey/floral/orange follows through on the palate, it is balanced by a good acidity, resulting in a lovely round, medium bodied wine with a slightly savoury aftertaste. Savoury…that’s a good word for it…like a dessert that gradually loses its sweetness so you can go on eating it.
The red, supplied by On The Grapevine, is a more familiar Cote du Rhone, this one from Clos Petite Bellane in, well, France of course. It’s a 2007, classically rich with a slightly spicy nose, it has supple gently crushed fruits on palate – delicious redcurrants and raspberries in a smooth, medium bodied weight with low tannins. A package that makes you go ‘yum!’ if all that other stuff doesn’t spring immediately to mind.
Both wines have enough elegance, character and clout to go really well with rich autumnal flavours and the white also doubles up brilliantly with Asian spicing.
Priced at €26 a bottle, they are both also available by the carafe and glass.
CHRISTMAS PARTY MENUS · 12 October 2010
For three weeks before Christmas we will be offering set menus at both lunch and dinner for parties of seven or more. As well as the usual seasonal delights, this year’s dinner menu will kick off with a prosecco cocktail featuring our own sloe gin, which is infusing gently even now and will be ready just in time for the festivities.
You can view the menus here, and bookings can be made by calling the restaurant on 021 4277939.
Exciting new wines of the month just in... · 7 October 2010
The wine of the month feature has been humming along quietly for a while now, so maybe it’s time to sing its praises a little bit. Every month, Geraldine picks a couple of new wines that she and her fellow-tipplers of the Paradiso dining room, Aoife and Dave, think work especially well with some of the seasonal dishes on the menu.
This month we’ve taken on a new supplier and to mark the first steps in what we hope will be a wonderful relationship, we’re offering two of their bottles as wines of the month.
The white is Poggiobello Friulano 2009, from Fruili-Venezia in Italy, and according to Geraldine it’s got an almond biscuity nose opening up to white flowers & peaches on the palate, with good acidity on the finish. Now, we all know that can only mean that it’s going to go down beautifully with the beetroot risotto or the just-returning-to-the-menu ‘oyster mushrooms in cider cream on cabbage, leek & chestnut timbale’. Or the classic tofu dish…or the first pumpkin dish of the autumn, a gratin with squash, leeks, hazelnuts, citrus cream and braised borlotti beans.
The red is a classy beast with what I swear Geraldine says is a hint of smoke and autumn leaves, as well as redcurrants, wet tobacco and soft, light tannins. Yes, you’re right, that refined character, grandly titled Bricco dei Guazzi Barbera del Monferrato 2007, from Piemonte, is crying out for a dish of roasted aubergines with a little spice and richness. Try it with the aubergine, leek & haloumi parcels that have just appeared on the dinner menu. I have to admit I’d have that with everything from toast for breakfast to a cream cracker before bed.
Enjoy, and feel free to send feedback, here or on facebook.
Denis Cotter Demo at Donnybrook Fair · 9 September 2010
Denis’ next cookery class – and probably the last one in Ireland this year – will be at the Cookery School at Donnybrook Fair in Dublin on Saturday 18th September. The 3-hour Saturday morning class will be a combination of seasonal Cafe Paradiso favourites and recipes from Denis’ next book, ‘for the love of food’, due to be published in March 2011.
You can find more information and make a booking at the Donnybrook Fair webite
Denis Cotter cookery class at the Tannery · 25 August 2010
Denis will be teaching a full day course at the Tannery Cookery School in Dungarvan on Saturday 11th September. The purpose built space is one of the nicest cookery demonstration environments in the country and class sizes are small, so the experience at a full day course is always intensely informative but relaxed and social at the same time.
This time out, Denis will be demonstrating dishes from the seasonal Cafe Paradiso menu as well as a few from his forthcoming book, due to be published in April 2011.
The class size is limited but there are still places, and you can find out more and make a booking here
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book news coming like buses · 10 July 2010
I’ve been very quiet about this – mostly because for a long time it didn’t seem at all likely to actually happen – but I’ve been working away slowly on a new book for the past couple of years. The first half of that time was spent in ridiculous procrastination about what kind of book it would be, while the publisher probably thought I was going to deliver ‘War and Peace 2 – The Cabbage Years’.
Then I hit on the brilliant idea of doing a recipe book. You know – one of those quaint books with instructions for nice things to make for dinner, and a few useful bits of information about the ingredients and variations you might find useful if you don’t actually have cime di rapa growing in your back garden.
This extraordinary idea was inspired by two things. First, I made something for dinner one night that just completely encapsulated the dual pleasures of making simple food and sharing it with someone you love. You can talk about food all you like but the pleasure of it is in cooking, sharing and, most of all, eating. And that’s the second thing – there’s just so much yak-yak about food these days, so much print and so much talk. By now, all you foodies are shopping consciously, locally and seasonally. You’ve got tomatoes on the apartment balcony and chard in the flower beds. You’ve got more food books beside your bed than in the kitchen. I still have plenty to say about all that stuff but the din of preachers is getting a bit shrill and I hate shouting over a crowd. So it seems like a good time to shut up and make dinner.
This book of simple pleasures will be hitting the bookshelves in March next year. Photography and editing start soon and I’ll try to keep you up to date in my usual diligent way. I can’t tell you the title just yet, hopefully in a week or two.
Up until a week or so ago we – we being me and the entire Harper Collins corporation – couldn’t quite put our fingers on that snappy combination of words that would make the world rush to buy the book. Then it came to me, in a flash of blinding simplicity and obviousness (is that a word?). The reason I can’t tell it to you is because the corporation is mulling it over, passing it up and down the floors and departments of Fulham Palace Road while we await white smoke. If you think my title idea is brilliant – without actually knowing what it is – put a simple yes in the comment box. All votes will be published, good, bad or indifferent.
Meanwhile, book news coming a la buses, the last one – ‘wild garlic, gooseberries…and me’ – is to be published in paperback on the 18th August. It’s got a lovely pink cover and a giveaway price, so even if you’ve got it already you’ll probably want to buy a stack of them to give as casual gifts. Here’s a link to the Harper Collins page where you can get a sneak preview of the cover – www.harpercollins.co.uk…
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PARADISO AND GORTNANAIN FARM TWO DAY PACKAGE · 5 July 2010
Stay and dine at both Cafe Paradiso and Gortnanain Farm for just €330 for two people.
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