Yannick and Louise at the Mugshot Cafe

Restaurants and food play a big part in my life, working full time in a restaurant and spending quite a fair amount of time cooking and eating out in my spare time. This has meant that in my head, I have complied a Bucket List of restaurants in my head, mostly for simply hearing about how amazing there are. Having lived in Copenhagen for a year (living the Erasmus college dream by going to college very rarely and working full time in an Irish bar) Noma is one of such restaurants. In fact, it is possibly number one on the list. So naturally, when I found out that Yannick Van Aeken and Louise Bannon were hosted a pop up restaurant in Mugshot cafe in Kilkenny as part of Savour Kilkenny, I jumped at the opportunity to go, and it also meant bringing Dearly Old Dad out for a meal, a very new concept for both of us! 

On arriving we were greeted by Aoghan, Manger of the Mugshot cafe, and such a lovely man he was. Unfortunately, due to my direct booking with Louise herself, there was some confusion with the actually booking. It very almost looked like our night was over before it began, but thanks to some switching and changing, Aoghan and Paul managed to organise us sitting on a bit of a communal table, the perfect way to spend what was to be a bit of a long meal! We settled ourselves down and proceed to get to know the five course menu, with everything from trout to rib eye beef. Another small mention has to go to Elena Montes who designed the menus. Beautifully simple, and some fabulous drawings. (I managed to nab myself an Elderflower to take home!)

And so the food started to come out, beer champagne began to flow and the inner food critic came out in DOD. Beer champagne just wasn't for me, having a definite liquorice or fennel after tone, but the snacks I could definitely get on board with! The best Black Pudding I've ever eaten (blood sausage to the more discerning foodie!) and my first taste of foie gras on what tasted like fennel and ginger bread was absolutely fabulous. However, the best was yet to come. 

Goatsbridge Trout served with creme fraiche, trout caviar and fermented Icelandic kelp. Even now, thinking about this dish, I'm hungry. It was just so beautifully simple, and fresh. Even talking to the owners of Goatsbridge, we found out that the trout was caught that morning and brought straight down to Kilkenny for the meal. With this starting off the meal, my hopes ever certainly extremely high. The next course however, I knew would be a struggle! 

Bone Marrow pipe with oven baked beets. While this dish looked visually stunning, it just wasn't for me. While bone marrow is seen as a delicay in Belgium, Yannicks home, for me, it was just to much of a strange texture, oily and fatty all at once. However, the beets were lovely, with a slightly salted exterior and a beauitfully deep red center. 

After a long wait, the Rib eye came. Cooked extremely rare (just how I like it), covered in eldercapers, some lovely baby potatoes and salad, the main was very tasty. However, I found it a bit boring, as tasty as it was. This was something that you could very easily make at home for your own dinner and it definitely wasn't something I expected. However, if the only flaw that I could find that was the main course was a bit normal, that definitely says a lot about the skill that these two chefs have in the kitchen!

It was cheese next, and Knockdrinna O'Hara's beer cheese, a lovely example of two Irish producers coming together and making a really tasty product. However, at this stage it was half twelve, after arriving at Mugshot at eight, I was slightly flagging. We decided to wait for dessert and quickly skip town then, having to drive back to Portlaoise that night. Well let me tell you, I would wait for that dessert four times longer if I had to. Like the trout appatiser it was fresh and beautiful, thinly sliced apples on top of a buttermilk sobert with the tinest tang of liquroice and pine. Something that I genuinely was unsure about before I tasted it, but my god, I have been converted. 

All in all, it was a top class meal. Nothing over the top and thanks to the long waits between courses, I wasn't overly stuffed afterwards. However, it was the long waits that also killed it for me. However, coming from restaurant experience, trying to cooked for 55 people all at once, which two people in the kitchen, it can be seriously hard going and I have to hand it to them, it was a beautiful meal. I must say a quick thanks again to Aoghan and Paul for sorting us out with somewhere to sit when they had a waiting list of over one hundred and twenty people and to Sean O hArgain, who was brilliant company and got Dear Old Dad talking about some great characters from Trinity's past! From one meal, it was clear to see that Savour Kilkenny is coming on in leaps and bounds and I am most certainly looking forward to next year and exploring all it has to offer!

 Credit where credit is due! (Twitter Accounts)
Yannick and Louise
Mugshot Cafe
Paul O'Connor
Savour Kilkenny
Elena Mortes
Sean O'hArgain