What you need to know about Ichigo Ichie Bistro as it reopens
Quay, At Dan Opened Chef Ichigo Wine & Ichie Linehan Bistro Which Street, Natural Picture: Takashi Sheares Cork At Fenns Miyazaki No5
Bizarre though it may seem, the news of Japanese chef and adopted Corkonian Takashi Miyazaki’s pivot away from Michelin-star dining with the reorientation of his Michelin-starred Ichigo Ichie to a new more casual dining model is being greeted locally and nationally with genuine enthusiasm and excitement.
It indicates a dining public that increasingly knows its own mind and desires when it comes to eating out as opposed to being entirely led by the glamour of the renowned international dining guide.
And any sort of good news at all is sorely needed in the restaurant world — with the artificial ‘life support’ systems of reduced VAT and delayed revenue payments being removed from the hospitality sector, a grim reckoning is gradually being unleashed on the Irish hospitality sector, buffeted mercilessly in recent years by a perfect storm of factors (rising food and staff costs, staff shortages, rising energy prices, high rents, delayed pandemic impacts etc).
This positive story for a change is providing a genuine charge of epicurean enthusiasm on Leeside, for both Ichigo Ichie Bistro & Natural Wine's proprietors and the dining public.
Speaking to the , Takashi said that, on top of all the other ongoing challenges, Ichigo Ichie really changed after the pandemic.
“It got quieter and it became very hard to keep up a high-end restaurant, that people just use for special occasions, but I didn’t feel like being that type of place anymore, and I didn’t feel I could charge €140 or €150 anymore [the cost of the formal set kaiseki menu for one person in the restaurant, not including drinks].”
“This change has been coming for a while,” said co-proprietor Stephanie Higgins. “It was getting harder to get the [essential Japanese ingredients], there were new challenges always springing up and this was an option to pump life back into the business and all the staff.”
“Miyazaki, our original restaurant,” said Takashi, “is very popular and local people love that and I would enjoy it more and be more happy with more local people in Ichigo Ichie — and ‘casual’ means fun. We can do a lot more dishes and it’s a better life balance as well. I am very excited!”
Ichigo Ichie Bistro & Natural Wine opens today, Tuesday, January 9, at 5pm, and bookings are already very lively but one big change is the restaurant will now also accept walk-ins off the street without any prior booking — although those extra spaces will likely be as rare as a hen’s dentist for the foreseeable future.
Takashi aims to get through two sittings a night in what is now a 33-seater venue. Last tables are at 8.30pm, last food order is at 9pm and last drinks order is at 9.30pm.
With a new à la carte menu, you can either eat your way through the entire menu or content yourself with a single dish as the old tasting menu is gone forever, and there will be plenty of vegetarian and vegan options.
The new style is focussed on local, casual-style food, fun, and sustainability, including small and sharing plates (eg dashi egg roll with Lough Neagh eel; tempura), rice bowl dishes (eg with deep fried chicken; cod; deep fried veg) and for the first time in Ireland, teuchi soba (handmade buckwheat noodles - 80% buckwheat flour, 20% wheat flour) dishes.
Takashi says: “I will make it fresh each day by hand. It takes 15 steps to make from milling the buckwheat. It is the best noodle, a totally different process than ramen or udon — they are so simple — and I am working with a farmer in West Cork to grow Irish buckwheat and really want to use that in the future."
Hot and cold noodle dishes will include zarusoba (tsuyu broth), kamojiru tsukesoba (Skeaghanore duck, leek, shiitake) and tenzaru soba (prawn, shiso, maitake). There will also be a blackboard with eight daily changing savoury specials (eg says Takashi, “a pinxto-style mushroom dish with a Japanese twist and the smoked Gubbeen cheesecake from the kaiseki menu, which was a very popular dessert.”)
Natural wine in the new name tells its own story, with a list of over 30 natural and organic wines along with a special collaboration beer made in conjunction with local craft brewers Original No 7, Ichigo Ichie Pale Ale. There will also be Japanese Asahi beer and Beamish stout on tap.