A ‘new look’ brand new series of this hugely popular programme is back and, as before, a high-profile personality is given the chance – and the challenge – to be a chef for the night. Ernie’s in Donnybrook is the venue for the new series and a new professional chef joins the now familiar kitchen crew. Also in this new series, Tom and Paulo get to prove their expertise(!) by blind-testing the wines (a 10 euro and 25 euro bottle each week) – let’s see if they really know their stuff?
The “mystery chef” in Programme 4 of this new series is Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh (see biog below).
Bláthnaid’s menu for The Restaurant is a reflection of her interests in travelling and food. The beef on her menu is from the same Co. Meath butcher who supplied the beef for her wedding reception. Her seafood dish is one that reminds her of holidays spent in Spain and her upside down plum cake is a recipe she learned from her mother. It’s an eclectic menu that Bláthnaid is presenting. Will the critics’ praise be heard tonight, or will Bláthnaid’s food be greeted with stoney silence? Find out in The Restaurant.
As before, each ‘chef’ will create and cook a full dinner menu in a real restaurant. The diners will be real diners, and among them each week will be a critics table with three top food critics ready to give an instant verdict and a star rating from one to five. The resident critics are Tom Doorley and Paolo Tullio, with one other guest critic each week. The guest critic for this show is Helen Lucy Burke (see biog below). The identity of the “mystery chef” will remain secret to all in “The Restaurant” until after the meal – but before the critics’ verdict is delivered.
The celebrities who become chefs for a night will be people who have a secret passion (and, who knows, perhaps even a real talent) for cooking. Now they have the opportunity to “go pro” for one night and serve up a real restaurant meal.
But they won’t be all on their own. They will get expert advice – and the highly trained regular staff of “The Restaurant” will work with them at all times – even when they don’t agree with the approach and ideas of the new chef.
The celebrity chef’s menu must contain three appetisers and a soup or salad, two main dishes and three puddings. He / she will also be expected to create a wine list and in this new series this list must include one bottle costing 10 euro and one bottle costing 25 euro.
BLÁTHNAID NÍ CHOFAIGH
Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh is an accomplished journalist, presenter and broadcaster. A fluent Irish speaker, she has been a presenter of Sin É, and reporter for RTÉ News and Current Affairs, covering stories as diverse as The Clinton Visit & The Special Olympics. She is currently working on a documentary on The Tall Ships and Female Genital Mutilation, as well as the last Irish and British general elections. Bláthnaid showed a different side of herself in 2004 when was one of the contestants on ‘Inside 252’, RTÉ’s week-long television and radio reality show for People in Need.
HELEN LUCY BURKE
Although Helen Lucy Burke has written on a wide variety of topics – from hotel and theatre criticism, to housing construction and design – it is for her restaurant criticism that she is best known. For many years she was restaurant critic for the Sunday Tribune, applying “rigorous standards of criticism” to the establishments she reviewed. It is perhaps not an understatement to say that Ms. Burke’s reviews were greeted with as much trepidation as anticipation by Ireland’s restaurateurs! Helen is currently engaged in freelance journalism for newspapers at home and abroad and is an occasional contributor to The Dubliner magazine. This is her third appearance at the critics’ table in The Restaurant. Viewers may recall that Helen took no prisoners on her previous visits, during which she proved to the bringer of much angst to Head Chefs Charlie Bird & Leo Enright. Helen’s critical style could best be summed up as “tough, but tough”!