The Menu: A Cork institution in Dublin, Munster absinthe and bitters fresh from Beara peninsula

Denis Cotter will take Leeside operation Cafe Paradiso to Overends Kitchen, in the very splendid Airfield Estate
The Menu: A Cork institution in Dublin, Munster absinthe and bitters fresh from Beara peninsula

Has What Currently Now Leeside Rebel Of On Launched Operating Just Distillery Distillery The Only Is City Tours

Paradiso up in the Airfield

After 25 years in a business that is ever more driven by a flavour-of-the-month imperative, Cafe Paradiso may not dominate the national culinary conversation as it once did.

Indeed, its fine dining take on vegetarian food may no longer be quite the rarified creature it once was as more and more chefs learn to embrace the challenges and creative potential that come with working with plant-based produce but The Menu believes the Cork restaurant remains as vital and innovative as ever and is pleased to share news of A Vegetarian Celebration (July 22; following popular demand, a second date has been added, on August 26) that sees Cafe Paradiso’s executive chef and co-proprietor, Denis Cotter, take the Leeside operation to Overends Kitchen, in the very splendid Airfield Estate, in Dundrum, in Dublin.

Cotter will present a specially curated meat-free menu, kicking off with a welcome cocktail, before serving up five courses featuring seasonal fruit, vegetables, and herbs from the estate’s 38-acre farm, with pre-bookable wine pairings available of organic, biodynamic, and natural wines selected by the Overends Kitchen sommelier in partnership with Le Caveau.

This is the first in a series of monthly collaborations with guest chefs of which The Menu will naturally keep his beloved readers well informed in the future.

Chef-Patron Denis Cotter at Cafe Paradiso, Cork. Picture: Miki Barlok
Chef-Patron Denis Cotter at Cafe Paradiso, Cork. Picture: Miki Barlok

Charity Cycle for Helen

Cycle4Helen is an initiative by Bantry man Eoghan O’Leary who plans to cycle from Malin Head to Mizen Head to raise money for charity in memory of his wife, Helen Guinane, who was diagnosed with breast cancer just eight months after they married and died two years later in 2020. As part of the fundraising, a raffle will be held for one of Gubbeen Smokehouse supremo Fingal Ferguson’s iconic handmade kitchen knives and The Menu urges each and everyone to snap up a ticket or three and to also consider donating on the GoFundMe page. The cycle starts on July 17 and finishes on July 22 in Mizen and funds raised go to support: METAvivor whose sole focus is in the area of metastatic breast cancer and was specifically chosen by Helen; Breakthrough Cancer Research, based in Cork; and St Francis Hospice, in Dublin.

New spirit of Rebel City

In just a few short weeks, The Menu will be quite thrilled to once more host his Grub Circus food stage at All Together Now music festival, in Portlaw, Co Waterford, and amongst his stage guests will be Cork city-based Robert and Bhagya Barrett, of Rebel City Distillery, who will be bringing their splendid Maharani Gin and their latest offering, the first commercially available absinthe to be produced in Ireland.

Meanwhile, the couple has just launched tours of what is now the only distillery currently operating on Leeside, housed in a historical old landmark building in the Marina Business Park, formerly part of the Ford’s production plant. Tours run each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Today’s special

West Cork-based creators, Beara Bitters.
West Cork-based creators, Beara Bitters.

The Menu’s recent discovery of Beara Bitters, West Cork-based creators of a splendid new range of liquid extracts to be employed in all manner of cocktail creation, sees him back into the lab consumed by a frenzy of cocktail creation.

Bitters are alcoholic infusions made with plants, fruits, nuts, seeds, bark and whatever you’re having yourself and the name, ‘bitters’, tells a tale for astringency is the common denominator. American food writer Mark Bitterman once wrote that, “bitters are to cocktails as salt is to food. They improve and align flavours just like salt does; they help to accentuate flavour and they bring their own flavours.”

Now that doesn’t mean you start firing the stuff willy-nilly into the Harvey’s Bristol Cream and top it with a cocktail umbrella. Bitters are potent, to be used by the drop or dash and the Beara Bitters range are exceptionally well refined, wonderfully balanced and mighty weapons in any self-respecting domestic or professional bar person’s armoury.

Beara Bitters’ Classic Bitters, made with Irish organic apple brandy, is their take on the original of the species, with notes of star anise apparent but they soften the wincing punch with fruity sweetness and the herbaceous flavours of garrigue, including French gentian.

While The Menu is loath to add anything at all to any of the higher end whiskeys in his cabinet, a dash or two made for a mighty Powers-based whiskey sour, equally enhancing one of his all-time favourites, the Negroni.

The Orange Bitters are delightfully bright and quite wonderful with soda or sparkling water or neat Ornabrak gin and really came into their own when The Menu began pairing them with wonderful Irish Kalak vodka. In fact, they add a gently bracing complexity to any of the sweeter concoctions, for example, bringing a newfound maturity to a classic daiquiri.

Smoked Pear Bitters sees the gloves came off entirely with sweet fruitiness and smokey notes of clove and cinnamon offering all sorts of creative possibilities, The Menu even uses it to add a little stringent nip and complexity to a creamy herb sauce served with grilled halibut.

Hats off to founders and creators Mary O’Sullivan and Loretto O’Driscoll and hardly any surprise to note they were Winners of the 2021 Blas na hEireann Gold Award in the category of Dark Spirits & Liqueurs. Meanwhile, The Menu can be found hard at work in his speakeasy.

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