The Week In Food #4: Lost burritos, energy balls and pickled goodness

January comes to a close, along with more restaurants, but there's good news on the Irish food front for some this week!

Jan 28, 2024

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.

Four weeks into the year, I’ve got this newsletter’s fourth edition and if you’re reading this, thanks! Thanks for subscribing, thanks for taking the time out of your day to read a few words (and give yourself a breather) and hopefully you’ll enjoy this week’s content. I’m hoping too that you’ve got the coffee on. I’m pretty sure this weekend’s brew is coming from Coffee House Lane in Waterford where I’ve got a bag of 1690 beans going into the hopper as soon as this sends.

For this Sunday, I’ve got five food stories for you that have caught my eye this week, five recipes that you could try out this week, some additional reading and a podcast pick for some listening enjoyment too.

Let’s get on with it for this week…

1. Tolteca bids farewell to Dublin

We’ll start this week where we started last week as restaurant closures continue on the Irish food scene, this time in Dublin where it was announced on Thursday that Mexican eatery Tolteca is closing all four of its restaurants in the capital.

A process adviser had been appointed to Tolteca in October last year ‘for the purpose of preparing a rescue plan for the business’.

Regarded as one of the city’s best-known burrito spots over the past decade, with locations on Baggot Street, Suffolk Street, Rathmines and on the Stillorgan Road. Their closure is immediate and according to the Irish Independent, could impact around 50 jobs.

Read about it here and see their sign-off on Twitter/X here.

2. €1m energy balls boost for Cork maker

Applications for this year’s Grow With Aldi campaign were extended this week until January 30th but the supermarket chain has shown that hard work can pay off for some of its previous applicants and winners.

26-year-old Matthew Collins should be in a good mood this week where having been chosen as one of the winners in the 2022 Grow With Aldi series, it was announced in recent days that his Cork-based business, The Sibly Food Co, has signed a 12-month contract to supply its energy balls to the retailers 161 stories, a deal worth a reported €1m.

Already supplying into stores, the deal assures its continuance for his Cacao & Nut Butter Energy Balls and Classic Nut Butter Energy Balls, as well as a host of Specialbuy products in limited edition flavours, according to Shelflife.ie.

The handmade energy balls have previously been a silver medal winner at the Blas na hÉireann awards.

3. Vegan Society of Ireland launches

Wednesday this week saw the launch of the Vegan Society of Ireland, once named the Vegetarian Society of Ireland but, as they decided at their 2022 AGM, with many members transitioning from vegetarianism to veganism, the name had to change.

The new society already has over 50 volunteers, and more are expected to join now their new website has launched. Vegans and vegetarians are encouraged to join as members where they can also avail of discounts at a number of spots around the country including Cornucopia, Vine Food, Quay co-op, PX Whole Foods, Moneygorm Farm and more.

The group plans to increase awareness of veganism in Ireland by running campaigns and educating the public by means of events, dialogue with other organisations and media exposure.

You can read up on memberships and find out what they’re all about by visiting vegansociety.ie.

4. Get funky

If you’re looking for a new read on the food front, the latest from Irish imprint Blasta Books has been released. Trading on the angle of ‘little books, big voices’, Blasta Books launched with the intent of changing the way that cookbooks are published in order to make more room at the table.

I picked up the sixth in the series, Tapas, by Anna Cabrera and Vanessa Murphy, recently and it’s a beaut. A5 in size with glorious illustrations instead of photos to accompany recipes.

Launched in 2022 with Lily Ramirez Foran’s Tacos, the quarterly publication has moved onto number 9 in the series and the first of 2024 this past week with the release of Funky by Caitlin Ruth.

For Caitlin, when it comes to pickles, she’s looking for taste, a contrast of flavours and a good way to make a funky dish. The former head chef of Deasy’s near Clonakilty, recently named Munster Food Hero and proprietor of food truck Caitlin Ruth Food, brings pickling goodness with pickle projects, dish suggestions and tips on using pickles in surprising ways.

It’s available now via blastabooks.com, Dubray Books, Amazon and other retailers.

5. First look at BIA

Lastly this week, there’s a good read in the Irish Times from food writer Marie Claire Digby who gets a look at the BIA Innovator Campus in Athenry, Galway.

The eight million Euro development has seen Lisa Kleiner’s Nibbed Cacao become the first leaseholder. The centre was launched on Friday morning by Taoiseach Leo Varadker.

Supports on-site include access to food scientists, commercial production kitchens, a podcast studio, hot desks, a 60-seat auditorium and demo space and more.

All facilities at the campus, apart from production units, are available to rent on a pay-per-use basis. Cooking classes will be made available to the public later in the year, with a 16-station culinary training space already in use for a bakery apprenticeship scheme.

Read all about it via The Irish Times or check out biainnovatorcampus.ie

5 recipes to try this week

If you’re like me, sometimes you can be surrounded by cookbooks but you still end up looking elsewhere for inspiration, or you wait for someone to send a recipe your way.

A conversation over the final piece of the newsletter puzzle in the office this week has seen me pick out five recipes to finish out the month and kick off a new feature every week where I’ll share five recipes you can try over the week ahead.

They’re no-fuss, won’t have you running to speciality shops for ingredients and might give you some divine inspiration for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Here are my suggestions for this week…

Felicity Cloake’s masterclass on making crumpets, perfect for breakfast time but you’ll need 2 hours prep to make it happen.
Nigella Lawson’s broccoli & stilton soup, enough said
Colm O’Gorman’s best lasagne recipe to make, and it’s worth the effort
Kate Lenehan’s Carrot Romesco
And from the Oprah files, Radhi Devluia-Shetty’s Red Lentil Daal (to finally put those lentils to some use)

Additional reading this week

If you’re looking for some more reading material or fancy popping on another coffee (you might need a pot at this stage), I’ve been busy bookmarking over the past few days

Podcast Pick of the Week

This week’s podcast pick comes by way of another Irish podcast, Dishing It Out, from chefs Gary O’Hanlon and Gareth Mullins. The duo signed off on season one of their podcast this past week with a bowlful of questions on whether they’d be eating right now, to cheese (and cheese boards), to things they hate to eat and more, it’s a nice end to what’s been an interesting series that’s featured the likes of Mark Moriarty, Maia Dunphy, Laurence Kinlan and more as guests since November.

Get it here on Spotify or wherever you do your podcast listening.

That’s a wrap

That’s it for another week. Get the audio edition of Food In 5 Minutes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and catch up on some of the reading on the blog this week including this post on coffee choices and this post on the Digital School of Food.

Wherever you are in the world, have a good day, have a good week and I’ll talk to you again next Sunday!