2013 was a great year for us. We ate in some great restaurants, both in Ireland and the world. See our blog post about the best and the most disappointing meals we had. We also improved our cooking skills a little bit and started to play with new ingredients and techniques.

We have had a great 'dining out' start to 2014 already. In Ireland we have had very good meals in Bon Appetit and Mulberry Garden. Bon Appetit was a lot better than the last meal we had there two years ago, both in terms of food and service. In fact both the food and the service were excellent. It actually climbed up to 2nd on our Irish restaurant rating league - previously it would have been just inside the top 10. The menu was very seasonal - pheasant, spices - and warming on a cold winters night. The star of the show was the desert (the same on our previous visit) a skilful play on the humble apple with tangy undertones and perfectly balanced textures.
Mulberry Garden, which was our favourite restaurant of 2013 (as mentioned in a previous blog), was as delightful as ever and the reputation of the restaurant is continuing to grow.

We travelled to Copenhagen and ate in Noma in January. This was an amazing and inspiring experience. There were some stunning dishes - some of the best we have ever eaten in fact. But there were a couple of dishes that we didn't like. The potato and lojrom (which is the row of a bleak fish) was very disappointing and the texture of the near raw potato was a bit unpalatable. Another disappointing dish was the onion and ants. It was a bit boring and the taste of the ants was lost. However, the potato and pear dessert, the monkfish liver, the sea urchin,  the 100 year old clam, the pork skin and blueberries, the burnt leak, the potato and pear; aronia berries and sol were all lovely dishes. 
We desperately want to go back some year in the summer when the menu would be completely different.

Noma is one of the most influential restaurants of recent times. You could argue that every time you see foraged ingredients on a menu or when you see producers listed, it can be traced back to Noma. 

The food is like nothing we have had before, it is not just the taste of a Danish food, but the taste of Danish landscape, of its soil, its forests and of its seas. Very few of the dishes smack you around the face with flavour, but instead give you a delicate taste of Danish terroir. It can appear deceptively simple, but in fact the dishes are complex and a result of a lot of man hours. 

We left Noma feeling inspired to start pottering around our own landscape and see what we can find to cook. Which leads to interesting question. Would a Noma would succeed in Ireland?

Last year Nede was opened in Dublin by two former Noma chefs. Their philosophy was similar to Noma's - to showcase local ingredients in as natural a way as possible. Albeit their dishes were a lot simpler. The food was natural, light, delicious and skilfully prepared, but they did not succeed. We were there twice and, despite one of the times being a Saturday night, the place was nearly empty  on both occasions. Louise Bannon, one of the chefs, told us that people were not really understanding what they were trying to do. We weren't too surprised by this and during our first visit we both feared the restaurant may struggle. 

They were serving dishes that may appear as just vegetables on a plate, or Dublin bay prawns in a wild garlic oil, and I think diners did not appreciate that these dishes were not as simple as they appeared. Whether they were simple or not actually shouldn't matter, because the dishes were delicious They served steak in its own red juices, which may turn some, especially the 'well done' brigade, off. And serving beef heart with cherries may have sent others - who think it is normal to eat a muscle from the backside of an animal, but not the heart - running out the door. They did have some dishes that could appeal to all, the chocolate and barley dessert was one of the best we had last year.
We are not sure what the actual reason Nede only lasted a few months, but it looked like it was struggling from the beginning. It was a sad day when it closed its doors, both for us and the two talented chefs. One reason for the closure of Nede may have been its location. It was in Temple Bar and serving food that would not appeal to the tourist trade and it was not trendy enough, like Cleaver East for example, to attract groups on a night out.  
But we would doubt that a 'Noma Style' restaurant would survive anywhere in Ireland. Would Noma have survived in Copenhagen without international recognition? Maybe not. In an interview Rene Redzepi described how locals did not take to the restaurant at all in the beginning, so if it wasn't for the San Pellegrino best restaurant list, Noma may have been and gone without exerting its influence in kitchens all over the world. Now that would be sad!

We certainly have had some great meals in 2013, both in Ireland and around the world. We have also had some let downs.

The best of the Irish.
We did have some very good meals in Ireland. Ballyfin was a nice surprise - we were there for a birthday and were not expecting the food to be of such good quality. L'Ecrivain was as reliably good as usual. Restaurant 41 is still on the rise and producing some great food. Nede, which unfortunately was only open for a few months, would have been up for consideration for our favourite of the year. It demonstrated great skill with deceptively simple regional and seasonal dishes, and their chocolate and barley dessert may have been the best we had in Ireland last year.
But our favourite restaurant of 2013 is Mulberry Garden. With a seasonal market menu that changes each week it still manages to provide very consistent cooking using locally sourced produce. We visited several times in 2013 and you could see the food evolving and getting a little bit more adventurous as the chef Tom Doyle's confidence grew. Add to that great value and friendly service and you have our winner. Their venison dish, served right at the beginning of game season in August, was one of the best of the year.

The worst of the Irish.
There are two restaurants that come to mind. We had a very bizarre meal in Chapter One. We were an early sitting and they offered us the pre-theatre menu. After chewing on some plastic from a piping bag in an otherwise decent starter we each had a 'carvery' style main course. What we mean by that is a plate full - brimming in fact - of badly cooking nondescript ingredients. This was followed up with two seasonal but average deserts. Add to that the strange service - we had to point out in the wine menu what a Sauternes was and near the end of our meal they started  to vacuum around us. We left in a state of bemusement. But despite that, the most disappointing had to be Aniar. We love the 'terroir' idea of serving food - were you can taste the landscape of the area on the plate. There are some restaurants that do it well - Mulberry Garden and Nede for the short time it was open. Aniar did not deliver this. The dishes lacked any seasoning and were nearly all bland. One dish had bullet hard peas that were barely edible. Despite going for a tasting menu the dishes were so dull they were difficult to finish. 

The best and worst of our travels
We were lucky enough to eat in some great restaurants in London and New York in 2013. Eleven Madison Park in New York was a great experience. Around 20 courses of New York inspired food from Chef Daniel Humm. The highlights were carrot tartar (which is minced at the table); Duck and Lavender and clam chowder. The only bad dish was the oyster, which tasted like an ice cube. But the best on our travels had to be The Fat Duck, which had no bad dishes and you would have  to nitpick to find faults in any of them. We both agreed that Botrytis Cinerea was the best desert we ever had and the subtlety and skill of the famous Sound of the Sea dish was amazing. 
The most disappointing meal, although not a bad meal, may have been lunch in The Square in London. We had high hopes for this 2 star restaurant, but it was ended up being pretty mediocre with cold service.