The Week In Food #3: From restaurant closures to (very) fast coffee
This week shines a spotlight up upcoming Irish food awards and someone's been able to make a mug of hot coffee disappear in 3 second...
Welcome to The Week In Food
This is The Week In Food, the written accompaniment to the Ken On Food podcast and a weekly series that brings you five food stories served up in five minutes or less – ideal if you’re looking for something to go with your morning coffee, afternoon tea or just taking five minutes out for yourself.
Not only that but this week I’ve got some extra reading, trending recipes, a new podcast recommendation and more. At least the cold snap looks to have come to an end too!
Wherever you’re reading this, I hope it finds you in good form as we chalk off another week in 2024. Let’s take a look at this week’s highlighted stories…
1. Restaurant closures continue
This week I’m starting with restaurant closures, a topic that’s been much talked about in the food world since the turn of the year. In the past week, we’ve seen more closures announced in the midlands, Sligo, Donegal, Cork and more.
BusinessPlus.ie ran a story at the beginning of the week looking at closures in Ireland, topping 280 in the last six months with no end in sight on the Irish front with Restaurant Association of Ireland CEO Adrian Cummins describing the hospitality sector as carnage.
In the days since, there has been some talk of re-visiting the phased repayments element of the debt warehousing scheme that had helped some businesses keep the lights on through the pandemic.
Warehoused tax debt in Ireland post-covid is estimated at 1.7bn – a large chunk of that in the hospitality sector - but while there are no plans to return the VAT rate down to 9% for the sector as a whole, there are growing calls and some support for revisiting the rate for food-led businesses.
Read the original article here. It’s not just an Irish issue too with more eateries in the UK closing their doors for the final time of late.
2. Japan’s salarymen cutting back
Food prices continue to rise and salarymen in Japan are turning to cheap lunches – this is according to Justin McCurry in Tokyo, writing about food for the Guardian where he touches on the salarymen culture, the rise of food prices in the world’s third-largest economy and why frugality looks to be topping the lunchtime menu.
By definition, salarymen – in Japanese culture – are male, white-collar workers who put in the long hours, and overtime, showing all the loyalty and commitment they can to their place of work, backing it up with all the after-work activities with their colleagues – karaoke, drinking, eating, come what may.
But even in an era where you work all day, all night, you’ll eventually feel the cost of living, with some studies suggesting that personal expenditure on eating out could be down as much as 70%.
Read more on The Guardian here.
3. Irish Cheese Awards bound for Tipperary in April
Blessed are the cheesemakers as CÁIS, the Association of Irish Farmhouse Cheesemakers has announced that the Irish Cheese Awards are taking place this spring.
Judging is due to take place in Dublin at the end of March by a panel of experienced Irish and international judges, with the actual awards ceremony slated for Thursday, April 25th at Kilshane House in Tipperary.
It’s the 10th edition of the awards, the first taking place back in 2010 and will see cheeses from all 32 counties in Ireland battle it out across 18 diverse classes. It’s a biennial event, uniting the cheese-making community to honour the achievements of Irish farmhouse cheesemakers.
If you’ve got a particular favourite on the Irish cheese front, I’d love to hear your suggestions – email ken@kenonfood.com to say hi.
For more, check out CÁIS on Facebook here or visit IrishCheese.ie.
4. Fast coffee much?
We all know about fast food, but what about fast coffee?
Reading on Sprudge.com this week, the world record for the fastest cup of coffee consumed was smashed this week.
Enter German native Felix von Meibom who now has the honour of consuming a mug of hot coffee in just 3.12 seconds, 0.05 seconds faster than the previous record, set by Andre Ortolf in 2021. The achievement’s been recognised by Guinness World Records and you’ll find a video of the effort on their Instagram account or in the links on the blog post for this podcast too.
There’s no indication of how hot the coffee might be, but if you’re the kind of person to serve or consume a 93-degree americano in a shade over 3 seconds, you must be made of hardy stuff. For me, I’ll keep going with churning out podcasts that you can enjoy with a coffee over a few minutes, whatever about a few seconds.
5. Irish Restaurant Awards return for 15th year
The last one I have for you this week brings it back to Irish food circles where nominations have opened for this year’s Irish Restaurant Awards. Celebrating the best that local food-led businesses have to offer, 2023 saw over 130,000 nominations made in categories like Best Chef, Best Cocktail Experience, Best Customer Service, Innovator of the Year, Best Restaurant and more.
The Irish Times are media partner again this year and hosting the nominations process, with links available either on the blog or through the restaurants association website. Cut off to get yours in is noon on January 31st, with judging expected in February/March before the regional events begin.
This year’s All-Ireland gala awards dinner takes place in Dublin in May.
Also this week…
As the McKenna's Guides plaques start to appear on eateries for 2024, congratulations to Fennelly's in Callan (just up the road from me) who'll be hanging one outside the door for the year ahead. They've just returned from their winter break and are ready to rock and roll for another year ahead on the food front so if you find yourself touring Kilkenny any time soon, pop it on your list.
Also on the blog this week I've got
a handy list (far from exhaustive) of Irish coffee roasters shipping straight to your door
a look at the Irish Restaurant Awards categories and some of last year's winners
and more besides. I’ve also been showing off some homemade venison burgers on TikTok while I figure out that side of things on the content front. Fun times indeed.
Given we're still in January, keep in mind the 6 spots worth checking out for lunch in Kilkenny this month.
Something else for your ears…
This week I’ve been chasing seaweed and caught an episode of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme exactly that.
Seaweed farming could be a huge boon for the UK, restoring biodiversity, cleaning the sea, and capturing carbon. Seaweed is healthy and delicious but UK-grown seaweed has a very low profile with only a handful of farms across the country and few people eating it. In this programme, Leyla Kazim finds out why this is and what a future focused on seaweed could look like.
She talks to Vincent Doumeizel author of The Seaweed Revolution who believes seaweed is an answer to many of the crises we face as a species. In St Austell Bay, Cornwall she meets Tim van Berkel from the Cornish Seaweed Company and sees one of the few seaweed farms in the UK. What is the current state of Seaweed farming?
Leyla meets Douglas McMaster at his restaurant Silo to talk about seaweed as an ingredient. She also talks to Olly Hicks, an adventurer and seaweed farmer who has a licence for a huge seaweed farm in Devon but is currently selling the seaweed for use in agriculture.
It’s on the rise, definitely something that’s overlooked in Ireland and on the whole, it’s well worth the listen.
Find it here on Spotify or listen on the BBC website.
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