The Restaurant is back and to celebrate its 4th series on RTÉ1, 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.
Programme three of the new series sees writer and journalist John Waters take up the challenge in the kitchen.
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 Terry McCoy, ‘Redbank House and Restaurant’, Skerries. 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.
John’s menu has an Irish theme going through it, as he explains, ‘I’m not a cook by any stretch of the imagination, but I know what I want as well. What I was looking for in starters were things that were Irish. Staple foods which maybe we ignored, things like mushrooms, sardines, and black pudding, very staple things and to look at how you might exoticise them.’ The Bewley’s Tea Brulee is quite a cheat on my (Irish) theme because it doesn’t really fit in, except for the Bewley’s tea which gives it the quintessential Irish stamp. The apple plate comes from my daughter Roisin who appointed herself my chief desserts advisor. ‘
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.
JOHN’S MENU
Starters
Strokestown Mushroom on Toast
Black Pudding and Foie Gras
Grilled Sardines with Salsa Verde
Mains
‘Cally’ and Lamb Bangers
Irish Gammon and Greens
Desserts
Apple Plate
Bewley’s Tea Creme Brulee