The Restaurant is back and to celebrate its 4th series on RTÉ One, the series moves to the midlands with two new chefs in the kitchen. The ‘celebrity’ head chef will now be whisked off to the Wineport Lodge in Glasson, Co Westmeath where they will take on our culinary challenge – to produce a top class, 3-course menu with 2 value-for-money wines.
The second programme of the new series sees top businessman and author Bill Cullen in the kitchen and his menu is reminiscent of the Dublin of his youth and the food he ate as a child (menu attached). With crubeens and tongue being special childhood favourites of Bill’s, he wanted to ‘bring people back in time’, but will it be a step too far for the sophisticated palate of our critics?
As before on the restaurant, each ‘chef’ will create and cook a full dinner menu, this time in the Wineport Lodge. 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 restaurant owner and chef Domini Kemp. 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 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. Stephen McAllister is back in the kitchen as mains chef and joined by newcomers Dave Workovitch on starters and Louise Lennox as pastry chef.
The celebrity chef’s menu must contain three appetisers and a soup or salad, two main dishes and two puddings along with a wine list.
Bill Cullen’s Menu:
Starters
Warm Salad with Clonakilty Black Pudding
Roast Quail
Crispy Connemara Crubeens
Main Course
Poached Salmon and Prawns
Ox Tongue
Dessert
Winter Fruit Jelly
Apple Pie a La Mode