weekend bites

This week I’ll be eating… flowers! It’s the height of Summer and we have lots of courgette and squash flowers that we can dip in a light batter and deep-fry, then serve them with a scattering of sea salt and wedges of lemon. Pot marigolds and nasturtium blossoms are great in salads, not just for colour but for flavour too. And, according to a book from the 1930s, you can add highly scented rose petals to cucumber sandwiches, something that may have inspired Hendrick’s Gin. There have been plenty of new restaurant openings or transformations in the capital in recent weeks. McDonagh’s in Dalkey is now a gastropub and live music venue, The Ivy is packing them in on Dawson Street, Pi pizza is wowing the bloggers, Aqua of Howth have taken on Botanic House in Glasnevin and Johnnie Cooke is having a renaissance with an all-day restaurant above Harvey Nichols in Dundrum. They are all on my list for a visit. The highly respected Andy Hayler, who specialises in reviewing Michelin star restaurants around the world (nice work if you can get it) said of 2-star Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud last week ‘there are plenty of worse three star restaurants than this.’ I don’t doubt it. Michelin is utterly inconsistent. There are one-star restaurants in London and Paris that are not fit to lick the boots of places like Chapter One in Dublin. I ate in one in Florence that made a greasy spoon seem like gastronomic heaven. See Hayler’s Guilbaud’s review on his website, andyhayler.com