Cork’s casual revolution
The rebel city hasn’t always been a trendsetter when it comes to Irish dining, says Lucinda O’Sullivan. Lately, however, they’ve been riding a wave of hip, casual, unpretentious street food that’s as tasty as it is cheap
Between boom and bust, we’ve seen a seismic change in our dining habits, with the casual revolution becoming a worldwide trend. Consequently, restaurants that haven’t seen the light by deformalising their set-up may end up folding their starched napery for the final time.
Today’s diner is a cannier guy who’s seen it all, and even if he hasn’t travelled the world on his gap year, he’s done it virtually. He knows his chipotle from his chipolata, his burrata from his baloney, his Negroni from his nachos, and he Instagrams everything in sight. He’s not impressed by a sniffy sommelier trying to upsell, or by the Nordic tasting menu that features a single slug crawling out from under a lettuce leaf. He doesn’t necessarily want to drink from jam jars, have his chips in a shopping trolley or his Toulouse sausages or pulled pork served on an upturned bin lid — he wants good food in a casual setting. He may well be into watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, but over-the-top, gimmicky hipster upcycling, like all fads, is contrived and boring, and the ‘one-visit’ eateries that embrace this philosophy will hit the dust too.
He wants to be somewhere casually sophisticated, with really stylish food and a happening vibe. Rather than lashing out silly money once a week, he’d prefer to spread that money throughout the week on more relaxed eats.
Top Michelin chefs around the world have been drifting towards the casual option to augment their bank balance. They may still have the Michelin aura, but Marco Pierre White copped on years ago, by focusing on his brand of steakhouses; while Giorgio Locatelli, of the Michelin-starred Locanda Locatelli, has been venturing down the road of more casual dining, with his pop-up Pizza Locadeli.
Jamie Oliver, with his well-established chain of Jamie’s Italian restaurants, last year went down the route of American barbecue restaurants with Barbecoa. He enrolled the Brad Pitt of pitmasters, Adam Perry Lang, of Daisy May’s BBQ restaurant in New York, to get the theme right. It’s a carnivore’s delight, of course; almost primitive in ethos, chowing down on huge lumps of meat that have been smoked and fired as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago, out in the open. The competition for the steak and burger market is huge everywhere, and this brings me also to the dining scene in Cork city.
Holy Smoke opened recently in the Mardyke Entertainment Complex, with Jamie’s former Barbecoa pitmaster, John Relihan, in the saddle, bringing the New York experience to the banks of the Lee, tel (021) 427-3000.
In latter years, I think it’s fair to say, Cork hasn’t exactly been a trailblazer on the restaurant scene in the same way that Dublin has, with vibrant new eateries at all levels — street food, ethnic, smart hip, posh nosh and so on — or Galway, which has reinvented its dining scene with street food, cutting-edge restaurants, and hosting major food events such as the Food on the Edge symposium, which has seen top international chefs coming from Spain, and elsewhere.
Lately though, in Cork, they’ve been embracing the hipster vibe, with a burgeoning of small, casual, street-food style places — noodles; tapas; burgers; Mexican. I’ve always loved the way you can find great little bistros and bars in side streets in cities around the world, including Melbourne — which is famous for its laneway eateries — and Cork has lots of those wonderful little side streets feeding off Patrick Street and Oliver Plunkett Street.
Coqbull on French Church Street, see coqbull.com, opened last year. It’s a hugely popular casual burger and chicken offshoot of Padraic Frawley’s Cornstore, see cornstorecork.com. The White Rabbit Bar & BBQ, on MacCurtain Street, is hopping too, tel: (021) 455-2222; and nearby, The Fish Wife is reeling them in for great fish ’n’ chips, see thefishwifetakeaway.com.
It’s quite lovely, strolling around these little streets, doing your own food crawl. Sauntering around Oliver Plunkett Street, the waft from O’Flynn’s Gourmet Sausage eatery on Winthrop Street, where a chap was grilling away, had me wishing we had a Dublin equivalent, see oflynnsgourmetsausages.ie.
East by The Rocket Man, a delicatessen at the gorgeous Winthrop Arcade, was interesting, too, with all sorts of falafel and coffee, see therocketman.ie. On Carey’s Lane, beside the colourful long-standing Cafe Mexicana, see cafemexicana.ie; is The Meatball Place. It’s an idea brought back from Australia by Tony Costello and Grainne Holland, which is flying high. You choose your ball — chicken, pork, fish, beef, falafel; then a blanket — one of six sauces; finally a bed — pasta, mash, Parmesan fries, and so on. See themeatballplace.ie.
Quinlan’s, the Kerry fish people, who have seafood eateries in Killarney and Tralee, have moved into Cork with their new Seafood Bar on Princes Street, see kerryfish.com. Delitaly is lovely for its wide selection of pastas and salumi that you don’t see in other places, tel: (021) 432-2357; while Dashi, doing sushi and noodles, has been on Cook Street for a while, see dashi-deli.com; and the stylish Iago, with its amazing cheeses and home-made pastas, is out on its own, tel: (021) 427-7047. Having visited the extraordinary English Market, I headed over to the new Ali’s Kitchen, the latest venture of Ali Honour, where I had Cloud Picker coffee, along with delicious chorizo and eggs on sourdough toast, with harissa and rocket, see aliskitchencork.com.
Another Cork hotspot is Miyazaki, a small Japanese eatery and take-out on Evergreen Street, which has all the foodies ooh-ing and aah-ing, tel: (021) 431-2716. A good contemporary Japanese eatery is needed in Dublin, along the lines of London’s Roka chain. Good Japanese food has a clean-cut finesse and style that, frankly, we haven’t experienced yet in this country. Noodle joints are thriving, including Aroi with its three branches, one in Cork, at Carey’s Lane, see aroi.eu; and Ramen, who last year had three places, are now about to open their sixth in the Cork area, see ramen.ie. And if you want to see recycled vintage galore, take a spin out to The Workshop, a cafe near Cork Airport Business Park, see theworkshopcork.com. It’s certainly funky, and the food is good. A