Food & Drink

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Tang review: ‘Our bill comes to €28.35 for one of the most pleasant, unfussy lunches I’ve had in a while’

“Charming Intelligent Staff,” reads the sign in the window of Tang, “One More Needed.”

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Lucinda O’Sullivan’s restaurant review: Pricey, disappointing food with an Oirish flavour at Anna Haugh’s Conrad pop-up

My first-night visit to Anna Haugh’s pop-up in Dublin’s five-star Conrad hotel in Dublin 2 was a strange experience. Disturbing in a sense, because I’d been really looking forward to it, and, frankly, was kind of shocked by its failings. I’d had all the PR blurb but already admired this Tallaght-born chef’s success across the water. Haugh has her own restaurant, Myrtle, in Chelsea and is a regular on Saturday Kitchen and now she’s a judge on MasterChef: The Professionals.

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Lucinda O’Sullivan’s restaurant review: Cavistons, the Harrods of SoCoDu, has a stylish but pricey new brasserie

While it may have taken Cavistons of Glasthule, Co Dublin, 25 years to launch its second restaurant, it was well worth the wait. Unveiling itself recently, just a few doors up from the mothership, this stylish new brasserie has had the locals hopping with excitement.

Kids will love these spooky banana ghosts — Susan Jane White’s gut-healthy Halloween recipe is scarily good!

Fancy sneaking a freight of prebiotics and probiotics into your childer on Halloween night? No spells or incantations?

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Add some pumpkin spice with Rachel Allen’s gorgeous gourd recipes — there’s soup, chicken... and cake!

Pumpkins and squash — part of the gourd family — are extremely versatile, and happily for those of us who love them, they’re nutritional powerhouses too. Whether mashed, braised or roasted, they make a great accompaniment to meat, fish, pasta and pulses, and are super as the main event themselves.

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Kwanghi Chan’s Irish-chinese cookbook: Takeaway-style sweet and sour, pork and chive dumplings and beef chow mein

Serves 4 In the Hong Kong version of beef chow mein, the wok-fried noodles give it an extra-crisp texture compared to the northern Chinese versions. When you take that first bite of the noodle pancake (as I call it), you will hear the sound in your inner ear. Texture is everything in Chinese cooking, and this dish is a good example, from the crispy noodles to the silky sauce. It hits all the right notes.

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Donegal chef Kwanghi Chan: ‘As a Chinese guy leading a young team in a Michelin-starred restaurant, you couldn’t show any weakness’

At noon on a crisp autumn day, Kwanghi Chan is sitting at a corner table in his smart Bites restaurant in Dublin’s Capital Dock, watching the comings and goings. It’s starting to fill up with lunchtime customers but, while he says there are plenty of customers, in common with every other restaurant owner in the country, he’s dealing with the ongoing issues of increased ingredient and energy costs. He is worried about what’s going to happen over the winter, “when the heating really goes on”.

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Looking for value and excitement? Try these Portuguese charmers

Too often in the wine world, consumers must choose between value and excitement. In recent decades, however, Portugal has carved a unique niche of delivering both in spades.

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An Port Mór restaurant review: ‘Local and seasonal has become a cliché but when a kitchen truly buys into it like this one has, it’s to be commended’

I rarely eat on my own in restaurants, not because I have a thing about solo dining but because I prefer to share food, and eating with other people gives me the opportunity to try a greater variety of dishes. But I’m in Westport for a meeting and I don’t know many people here, so it’s Katy-no-mates looking for somewhere to eat on a rainy Tuesday evening.

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Donal Skehan’s spooky Halloween recipes — deadly doughnuts, cheesy witch fingers and pumpkin soup

The excitement for Halloween in our house is palpable. Every corner of the house has been adorned with skulls, black cats and spiderwebs since the start of the month, though I did draw the line at pumpkins until last week so we didn’t end up with rotten gourd carcasses sitting on our doorstep . Finally Halloween is upon us, and whatever way your family chooses to celebrate the spooky season, I have three recipes to get you through.

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Irish seaweed is an amazing super food, so why aren’t more of us eating it?

‘If only seaweed had the same PR as goji berries, blueberries and kale,” says John Fitzgerald of Atlantic Irish Seaweed in Co Kerry. “It needs rebranding if we’re ever going to get it into the mainstream diet.”

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Lucinda O’Sullivan’s restaurant review: Custard tarts and a tasty hangover cure at new Portuguese spot Alfama

If you’ve ever been to Lisbon or the Algarve on holiday, you’ll no doubt be familiar with pasteis de nata. Well, for anyone who isn’t, the good news is that these luscious Portuguese pop-in-the-mouth custard tarts, much like dryrobes amongst the SoCoDu swimming set, have become hip and hot in fashionable

Cupcake Bloke Graham Herterich’s barmbrack recipe will turn this Halloween trick into an everyday treat

He’s best known as The Cupcake Bloke, but there’s far more than fairy cakes to Graham Herterich’s culinary repertoire. In fact, his new book Bake, Traditional Irish Baking With Modern Twists, includes over 100 recipes for everything from breads and scones to puddings and tarts.

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Cheap, nutritious and delicious – get your kale on with Rachel Allen’s recipes for stew, gratin and a tasty side

When the weather is damp and cold, you might think the only vegetables in season are the tough, hardy roots, snugly protected by a deep blanket of earth, yet there are still delicious and nutritious green vegetables to be found. Cabbages survive — indeed, they practically thrive — in even the most bitter and frosty conditions, as does kale, a leafy relative of cabbage and one of my favourite winter treats.

Embrace a meat-free meal with Susan Jane White’s veggie-packed Moroccan chickpea recipe

United Nations scientists are urging us to help in the fight against global warming by switching to plant-based meals. Nope, they’re not asking you to give up meat, or to fall in love with tofu, they’re simply asking us to flirt wildly with vegetables and to give beans another chance. The planet will be happier, as will your wallet and your health insurer. I’m here to help you with that hat trick.

Standout Rhône-style blends and complex Cape whites

At two recent wine tastings, two wines that stood out for value were South-African Rhône-style white blends. The first, from Aldi’s new autumn-winter cellar, features equal parts Grenache and Roussanne with one-fifth Marsanne (think full-bodied and fragrant). These are grown in Voor-Paardeberg, a small ward of Paarl just below Swartland. The combination of cooling Atlantic winds and old soils — some granite-rich for freshness; some shale for richer, fatter expressions — are attracting several of Swartland’s ambitious young winemakers to venture south. After Aldi’s well-balanced blend had caught my attention, closer investigation revealed it is made by Trizanne Barnard. One of the winemakers who has been mining the freshness that Swartland offers, Barnard first made wine in the iconic Klein Constantia winery before setting up Trizanne Signature Wines, whose elegant wines from Elim and Swartland can be explored on Searson’s shelves.

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Donal Skehan’s showstopping chocolate mud pie with oozing cheat’s caramel sauce and peanut brittle

Lately, I’ve been reminding myself to soak up the particular phase of parenthood we are in. More often than not, our focus is on how to break up a fight, clean up the chaos in the playroom, or get the lunch boxes packed in the morning. It’s easy to forget the bigger task at hand — helping to mould little minds and give them the best of ourselves. Well, that and maintaining some form of sanity. While we might not always get it right, routine and structure is what we strive to provide.

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Chequer Lane restaurant review: ‘I have nothing against Jamie Oliver but our experience was disappointing’

"Let me show you straight to Siberia,” says our host. Of course, that’s not what she actually said, but that is how it felt. Open less than a wet week and Chequer Lane by Jamie Oliver is as busy and noisy as you’d expect at half eight on a Friday night.

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These are seven of the best air fyers to buy now, according to experts

Over the past year, you have likely been subjected to a sermon from one of many evangelical air fryer owners about the wonders of the kitchen appliance.

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These are seven of the best air fryers to buy now, according to experts

Over the past year, you have likely been subjected to a sermon from one of many evangelical air fryer owners about the wonders of the kitchen appliance.

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‘I worked in hospitality for ten years: James Corden’s bad behaviour in a restaurant isn’t an anomaly’

I’m not too proud to admit that I spent a disproportionate amount of my decade in hospitality crying in back rooms over customer behaviour. Reading about the alleged James Corden New York restaurant rampage brings it all back.

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Lucinda O’Sullivan’s restaurant review: Our food critic tours Cork’s foodie spots and savours some southern charm

Much and all as we love to go out for that extravagant gourmet experience or special occasion dinner, it’s not something most of us would do on a weekly basis, and certainly will be cutting back on this winter. Casual dining is what most people are about anyway.

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Hidden stars: Lucinda O’Sullivan’s 20 restaurants across Ireland that should have a Michelin star, but don’t

At this time of year, the burning issue on the minds of chefs everywhere is Michelin. They get a sort of reticent, glazed look in their eyes as the clock ticks down towards the big moment when the latest ‘stars’ are announced. Michelin madness, I call it — a bit white around the gills and a little less cocky than usual. Will they get a star, retain a star, get a second star, or even lose a star, when the Michelin Guide 2023 is launched? You just never know with Michelin, which has been rather erratic with some of its decisions in the past.

‘It’s an opportunity to be creative’ – Introducing Ireland’s first zero-waste wedding caterer, Orla McAndrew

Age: 43

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‘We were the weirdos who ate strange food” – Chef Anna Haugh on her culinary heritage and her pop-up at the Conrad

With a successful London restaurant to her name; a burgeoning TV career on the go, and a growing following among those in the know, Dublin chef Anna Haugh has done extremely well for herself.

Susan Jane White’s easy pepper soup is the perfect midweek recipe to pep up your mood and your immune system

There’s hardly a better way to celebrate autumn than by making bubbling vats of soup, especially this pepper soup. It’s the only vegetable that sounds like an exciting substance.

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Rachel Allen’s sweet and spicy recipes for chermoula and tapenade will elevate your easy-cook lamb or pork chops

A great big roast can be ideal for feeding five or six people, or more, but chops cut from the loin or rib of pork or lamb are a delicious and convenient way to cook for one, two or a few people. While a sirloin steak is essentially a beef chop, the name chop or cutlet usually just refers to lamb or pork (and veal) — the chop is from the loin and the cutlet is from the ribs.

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Find your perfect pairing of Irish food and drinks

In the spirit of the Irish Food and Drink Month campaign that runs nationwide in 140 venues this October, and aims to celebrate and match local beverages with local Irish foods, this week’s column focuses on just that. Run by Oisin Davis of Great Irish Beverages, the campaign is working with 18 different Irish drinks brands to encourage bars and restaurants to create and promote a signature Irish food-and-drink pairing for the month. The public can vote for their favourite using the hashtag #EatDrinkIrish (see greatirishbeverages.com for details), with no shortage of creative ideas to choose from.

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Donal Skehan’s autumn comfort bowls — chorizo crumble mac and cheese, Provençal sausage and lentils, and harissa lamb stew

Drag that casserole dish out of the kitchen cupboard, we are in peak soup and stew season and, personally, I am ready for it. The nip in the air, the darker evenings — this season demands comfort food. Since the kids have been back to school, we’ve established a nice, regular cooking routine, one that really celebrates autumn’s bounty. Coconut chilli pumpkin soup, chicken stew with buttermilk dumplings, and mild chicken curry popped in the slow cooker to feast on later in the day — all nods to changing seasons and ones to warm the soul. In addition to those suggestions, I have three recipes that are perfect for autumn comfort.

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Vice Pizza & Wings Shop review: ‘I’m firmly in the “pineapple on pizza is an abomination” camp, but this one sounded too interesting to pass by’

If the steady stream of riders arriving to have their insulated bags filled with wings and pizza for the Friday-night takeaway crew is anything to go by, Vice has got off to a great start. Barely open a month when we pitch up for the in-person experience, the wings and pizza restaurant occupies what was formerly home to a branch of Subway on the stretch of Merrion Street north of the square, a few doors along from Sweny’s pharmacy, where Leopold Bloom bought his lemon soap, and a short walk from Leinster House.