What We're Reading, Eating & Watching | July 2023
A delicious digest of satisfying suggestions...
Hi friends, welcome to another edition of our free monthly digest on the first of the month shining a light on some of the best things we’ve eaten, cooked, listened to, watched/streamed or read recently that we hope will inspire you.
No two monthly mailers the same, we keep each one fresh and distinct like a big ‘ol round of raw milk cheese. Think of this as a ‘highlights reel’, packed full of recommendations and delicious suggestions.
Eating
You know those restaurants that you know intimately, talk about all the time and recommend heartily, even though you’ve only eaten there once or twice? That’s Uno Mas on Aungier Street in Dublin, for us. We feel like we always know what’s going on there, see endless social posts from those who eat there and just know anyone we send their way will have a great time with stunning food and wine. However, we have to be honest: we’ve only eaten there once in our lives, and it was in late 2018 literally two weeks after they opened. It was so brilliant then we knew it would be long in the game. We also enjoyed their pandemic offering too on a short trip down to the countryside with our besties, but nothing compares to the experience in the restaurant.
Last weekend we finally got back in for, quite literally, “uno mas” (“one more”) with Patrick’s sisters and ended up ordering most of the menu. Suffice to say the whole experience was stunning, including their vegan options. Just like we knew it was. Uno Mas is just a fine, shining example of a restaurant made right. Sturdy and watertight; sublime every time. We out-boujied ourselves by beginning with cocktails at The Sidecar –– one of of the best bars in the city, particularly for a martini. A little pre-train wine followed the meal at Row Wines too.
For Russell’s solo escapades for Dublin Delish (tune in every Tuesday, 10:30am on the Suzanne Kane and Brian Dowling show on Dublin’s 98FM) this past month he’s been to: Bread 41 on Pearse Street for gob-stoppingly large sausage rolls, Cluck food truck (off the Walkinstown roundabout) for buffalo sauce-drenched fried chicken burgers and Mrs Reids in Dublin 8 for arguably one of Dublin’s best-made breakfast roll. He’s covered 15 spots in the county so far, catch them all over on our Instagram.
Of course Taste of Dublin rolled into town once again and we ate our way around it across a couple of the sessions. Stand-outs were Orwell Road, Dosa Dosa, Shouk, Chimac and Bahay.
In our Sunday Times Ireland restaurant review column, June was all about bistro dining –– elegant plates of local produce, great wines and casual but slick service. We headed North to Artis in Derry, the debut restaurant from Great British Menu alum Phelim O’Hagan and to brand new opening Myrtle in Co. Louth –– Ardee is so lucky to have such a brilliant new bistro in its midst. Then, to Dublin, two places we covered were chalk and cheese: old school stalwart King Sitric for a shellfish feast in Howth and Row Wines in the heart of the city where it was so perfectly formed, save for a pesky salad.
Across these four we spotlight 12 *other* places, too, like both The Black Pig and Fishy Fishy in Kinsale, both Oar Doolin and Vaughan’s Anchor Inn in Co. Clare and a pair of great spots in Westport: Savoir Fare and The Gallery, plus six more places, too. We’re loving being so many peoples’ go-to for restaurant recommendations. Paid subscribers have access to our exclusive map of dining around Ireland, see below 👀
Drinking
Looking for some interesting wine suggestions? Have you followed Bottle Bank Reviews yet? Our little 90-second episodes combine recycling and reviewing in one neat little package, spotlighting four to five different wines per episode in 20 second snippets. Easy, quick, accessible and a mix of the more hipster, natty stuff and the mass produced supermarket options, so there’s a bottle for everyone!
Listening: Podcasts
If you haven’t been tuned in to Sunday Roast Potatoes, where have you been?! A paean to the great Irish carvery from our pals Emer McLysaght and Esther O’Moore-Donoghue, it delves deep into the heart of the carvery with a different place road-tested each week, from lavish hotels and neighbourhood pubs to filling stations and supermarkets. They’re just at the conclusion of season two, but the most recent episode is a live pod from Beyond the Pale Festival which is a great overall intro if you haven’t yet been acquainted.
The ‘Caff’ is a British institution, but is it being lost? We’re loyal listeners of BBC’s The Food Chain and this recent episode on the potential demise of the ‘Caff’ captivated us.
Two more podcast suggestions, particularly if you prefer bite-sized episodes. Both Monocle Radio: The Menu (hosted by Marcus Hippi) and Olive Magazine (hosted by Janine Ratcliffe) have episodes 30 minutes or longer but both also have short, snippet-style episodes of five or six minutes to whet appetites. Both are well worth diving into to delve into their respective archives.
As ever, a little “Thanks!”
We always like to end these monthly mailers full of our top recommendations with a little thanks. Thank you for your support of Chip Paper, whether you’re a premium subscriber or just enjoying the free emails and snippets here and there –– we appreciate you! We’re well into year two of our Substack journey and we think we’ve grown a nice little archive of evergreen long-reads and interesting articles, which paid subscribers have full and complete access too (working out for as little as €1 a week). Supporting via Substack is one of the simplest and most effective ways you can support our work if you’re enjoying it and want more.