TIRED OF RESTAURANTS? Looking for something a little more intimate and experiential?
A number of chefs and cafés around Dublin are putting on supper clubs and pop-up dinners that specialise in unique dining experiences. Think rotating menus and chefs running wild in the kitchen.
Here are four currently taking place in Dublin.
Mexican Supper Club, Picado
When Lily Ramirez-Foran and her husband opened Picado, a Mexican grocery shop on Dublin’s Richmond Street, she was adamant that they needed a kitchen. Not only did she want to sell authentic Mexican ingredients, she wanted to offer customers a chance to experience the depth and range of Mexican food for themselves.
“So much of the conception and image of Mexican food in this country is derived from Tex-Mex and Cali-Mex food, which is a far cry from what real Mexican food truly is,” she explains.
They immediately started hosting weekly cookery classes and workshops in which novices could learn how to prepare tortillas, enchiladas and tamales at home. The classes had to be practical and accessible for Irish people.
With this in mind, Ramirez-Foran decided to start a monthly supper club in which she could prepare more time-consuming, complex meals.
The Mexican Supper Club takes place on the third Saturday of each month in the shop. It’s an intimate affair catering to just eight diners. The menu changes each month and is usually based on a different theme.
“We have had about forty different themes since we started the Supper Clubs three and a half years ago,” explains Ramirez-Foran. “We have had a complete dinner based on chocolate; a theme based on Day of the Dead traditional foods.”
That’s not to mention the dinner based around tequila or the one based around hibiscus flowers.
From her experience, Ramirez-Foran says Irish people are big fans of Mexican food and often pleasantly surprised by the meals she whips up for them.
“Vegetarians are always surprised when they are introduced to corn truffles or edible cactus, which would not be in their veggie repertoire normally,” she says. “The one thing that surprises the most is the lightness of the food. People come expecting heavily fried and starchy foods and get nothing like that.”
From her point of view, Ramirez-Foran enjoys having the opportunity to flex her culinary muscles.
These evenings help me keep innovating in the kitchen and are also designed to show people the complexity and flavours of Mexican food, without worrying about how they are going to be replicated at home. I can be playful and innovative with the menus too.
As for whether a full-time restaurant is a possibility?
“A restaurant is a lot of commitment, but definitely a small boutique taqueria is on the card,” she says. “Sure the Lotto win is on the way, so we’ll have plenty of resources to do it.”
In March 2017, chef Keith Coleman was busy running Fia, a café in Rathgar, with his partner Aisling McHugh. That month, his friend Cuán Greene was home. Greene works as a chef de partie in Copenhagen’s world-renowned restaurant Noma.
The duo shared a keen interest in exploring the native ingredients of Ireland and decided to collaborate on a pop-up dinner in Fia called Roots.
The dinner was small and featured ingredients Greene had brought from the Noma pantry, as well as techniques he had learned in the kitchen.
“The resulting menu was a marriage of our ideas surrounding food with a distinct influence from Nordic cuisine,” explains Coleman.
“For example, for dessert we served a dish of Llewellyns Wellant apples compressed in cider lees (barrel sediments that occur during fermentation) with walnut cream, brown cheese (Norwegian cheese made from caramelised whey), hen of the woods oil, and black pears (imagine a raisin made from pear).”
One of the guests at that first dinner was chef Eric Heilig, formerly of Heron and Grey and now working in Copenhagen. Heilig contacted Coleman about collaborating on another dinner and Roots 2 was born.
“For this dinner, we viewed the produce available to us both through the lens of my own work and Eric’s Pomeranian heritage. As an example, we served a dish of goat tartare with fermented turnip, salted gooseberry, puffed buckwheat, and bolete mushroom.”
Since then, Coleman has put on four editions of Roots. Each has happened entirely organically, usually as the result of a chef making an approach to Coleman.
Coleman says the dinners afford chefs the opportunity to play and experiment, while collaborating with and learning from one another.
“It allows both chefs to explore new ideas and cooking techniques together, both bringing their own experiences and thoughts together,” he says.
The collaborative aspect is very important here too. Neither chef is usually fully responsible for a given dish. It may start with a single ingredient and expand from there to become a finished dish with both chefs giving their input.
Most recently, Coleman collaborated with chef Joshua Plunkett on the largest Roots to date in Green Man Wines in Terenure. They increased the ticket capacity and put on a second night.
They created a menu inspired by their mutual appreciation of Japanese cooking methods and collaborated with Green Man Wines on suitable wine pairings.
Dishes included grilled and dried cabbage leaves; kale sprouts; and purple sprouting broccoli in a seaweed broth with pepper dulse, sea herbs, and razor clams. Much of the produce was cooked over charcoal and the chefs used dashi, a type of Japanese stock, throughout.
The dinners have all been successful so far, but Coleman is taking his time planning what comes next.
“At the moment, Roots is planning future pop-ups with likeminded chefs to be held again in Green Man Wines,” he says. “This may form an ongoing series, but we’re not forcing anything at the moment and would like it to develop naturally.”
Slow and steady, as they say.
Since opening in 2012, The Fumbally has established itself as one of the most revered cafés in Dublin. Primarily known for its breakfast and lunch fare, it’s the type of place that you can while away a few hours while sipping on flat whites and stuffing yourself with a porchetta sandwich.
A few years ago, The Fumbally decided to step outside its comfort zone and start a weekly dinner held each Wednesday.
“The Wednesday dinners were always something we wanted to do from day one, but it took us two years to settle into the swing of the daytime trade before we had the energy for evenings,” says owner Aisling Rogerson. “We wanted to do something for locals that was relaxed and a simple way to meet with some friends and share a meal.”
The format of the dinner is simple. Each Wednesday, one of The Fumbally’s resident chefs takes the reins and creates a bespoke menu.
“One chef putting together a menu of what’s inspiring them at the moment that will be different from the week before and the week after,” as Rogerson puts it.
Initially, chefs created one big dish based on a theme or season. Since the start of this year, however, chefs have taken to creating a selection of small plates, typically priced between €6 and €8.
A recent menu included dishes like mussels in white wine and garlic, and crispy kale sprouts served with black miso mayo.
For the team, it’s a chance to try something a little different.
“It’s a way for them to focus in a bit more on specific dishes and ingredients and it’s a very different kind of service to the daytime offering,” says Rogerson.
The chefs rotate around each week, so everyone gets to share the dinners and they choose their own menus. Sometimes they still keep within a theme, like specifically Irish-focused dishes or Eastern/Asian influence for the night. Or sometimes they are just putting together a menu of what they want to cook that night. But it always represents cooking from the heart.
There has been talk about expanding the service, but Rogerson says that they’re happy to stick to Wednesday nights for the time being.
“But who knows what will happen in the future.”
A few years ago, Sean Mullan of Third Space in Smithfield wanted to host a meal for the apartment residents in the café’s complex.
“A kind of meet the neighbours exercise,” he says.
At first, they put on a few small bites and nibbles. In time, they decided there was room to put on a full meal with proceeds going to a local project. Just think of it another way of reaching out to the community.
“We threw it open to everyone and since we’re on Smithfield Square, we named it the Square Meal,” he says.
On the final Friday of each month, the café hosts a full meal with a main course and desert. The meals are announced in advance and customers must book a table.
The menus are generally themed – Greek, Mexican, Argentine – but always simple. All the tables are pushed together and everyone eats together, creating a sort of communal eating experience.
What really sets the Square Meal apart is the fact that there are no set prices. Instead, people pay what they like.
“We ask people to pay what you think it was worth via a box on the counter,” says Mullan. “We don’t want people to miss out because they can’t afford to come and the mix of people seems to work.”
The staff volunteer their time on the evenings and the business covers the food costs. That means all the money go to that month’s project. So far, they have supported everything from local boxing clubs to housing charities.
Mullan says the pay-what-you-like method, though unconventional, tends to yield quite a bit.
“We seem to always end up with a bit more in the box than we would have had if we’d charged people,” he says. “It seems to work.”
Dining while making a difference, eh?
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