Dublin’s Place in Irish Food History
Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire Ph.D.
School of Culinary Arts & Food Technology
Technological University
Dublin
Mythology and Early History
From 2000 year old Figs to Spice Bags
Coddle, Cockles, and Crisps
Evidence from Buildings and Placenames
Teatime Talk
• Sources for Information of Food in Dublin
• The Cries of Dublin (Hugh Douglas Hamilton 1760)
• History of Dublin Restaurants
• Poem or Song?
• Questions and Answers
DIT, College of Catering, Cathal Brugha Street
Monkfish, Jammet’s and the Queen
History of Dublin Restaurants
• ‘Oral Historians are haunted by the obituary page. Every death represents the loss of a potential narrator and thus a diminution of society’s collective historical memory’ (Davis, Black et al. 1977)
The original idea for my Ph.D. research was sown by P.J. Dunne with his stories of Jammet’s Restaurant. Then further tales from colleagues, and particularly the sudden illness and death of Albert Mulligan highlighted the importance of acting immediately.
Sources for study of old Restaurants
• Old Guide Books
• Old Business Directories
• Culinary Journals (The Chef, La Guide Culinaire)
• Books (history, memoirs, novels, etc.)
• Newspapers (advertising, obituaries, reviews)
• Census Reports
• Material Culture
• Photographs
• Paintings and Prints
• Oral History Interviews
Origins of the Restaurant
• First Restaurant in Paris in 1760s
• Differed from previous food outlets such as Table d’Hote as it provided
• 1. separate tables
• 2. individual menu
• 3. choice of times
• Restaurants boom in Paris after the French Revolution
• Restaurants slower to appear in London and Dublin due to Gentlemen’s Clubs
Inns and Clubs 17th-18th Century
Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1760)
Hotels in Dublin 1821 from Guide Books McGregor (right) and Wright (left)
for
attached to the Bodega The Irish Times 28th August 1890 p.4
Hotel
Evidence from The Chef
Dublin 1896
Identifying Informants
The challenge in oral history is to ‘track down’ members of the ‘old crowd’ as they are affectionately known (Kearns 2001)
• Brainstorming / Focus Group with colleagues (chefs and waiters) to identify key individuals who would be worth interviewing
• Public Call for information on the Morning Radio Programme (average listenership 372,000)
• Open letter to the newspapers
• Snowball Sampling - asking interviewees to suggest other informants
• Informants were brought through their lives chronologically and asked to provide any material culture (Menus, photos, newspaper clippings etc.)
Zenon Geldof Plaza Restaurant Café Belge
Belge
Patisserie
Camille Fauvin (1859-1926)
The Russell Pierre Rolland Ken Besson
Liam Kavanagh & Bill Ryan
Intercontinental Hotel (1963)
Haute Cuisine Stagnates 1974-1986
• Following closure of The Russell Hotel, the Royal Hibernian Hotel was one of the last bastions of old style ‘Escoffier’ Haute Cuisine. The Royal Hibernian closed in 1982.
• Escoffier style food survived in restaurants such as The Lord Edward and The Lobster Pot, and some of the traditional ‘table arts’ survived in five star hotels such as the Berkley Court and in restaurants such as The Celtic Mews.
• The Mirabeau and Le Coq Hardi were the most sophisticated Dublin restaurants until the opening in 1981 of Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud.
Growth of Nouvelle Cuisine mid-1980s
Rebirth of Haute Cuisine 1994-2008
• Egon Ronay awarded Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud a star in 1983 and The Michelin Guide awarded it a star in 1989.
• Egon Ronay awarded Colin O’Daly’s The Park Restaurant a star in 1989 and the following year he was awarded a Michelin Red ‘M’.
• The real growth in Haute Cuisine did not become apparent until 1994 when The Commons was awarded a Michelin star and both Ernies and Clarets were awarded Red ‘M’s’.
• In 1996 Michelin awarded Guilbaud’s two stars and Thornton’s received their first star and were awarded two stars in 2001. In 1998 another Michelin star was awarded to Conrad Gallagher’s Peacock Alley.
• In the first years of the new Millennium, Michelin stars were awarded to l’Ecrivain and Chapter One which had held Red ‘M’s from the mid 1990s.
• Two further Michelin stars awarded in 2008 to Bon Appetit & Mint.
Recession but Expansion
• Despite the Recession – Irish restaurants managed to survive and expand
• Mint closed in 2009 but new Michelin Stars included:
• 2010 – Cliff House, Waterford
• 2013 - Lock’s Brasserie, Dublin; Aniar, Galway
• 2014 - Lady Helen Rest & Campagne, Kilkenny
• 2015 – Loam, Galway
Future looks Bright!
Le Guide du Routard 2011 ‘Irish dining experience is now as good, if not better, than anywhere in the world’ 2015 San Pellegrino Young Chef – Mark Moriarty Chefs, Waiters, Bakers, Culinary Scientists doing PhDs
Questions ????
