Behind the scenes at the Biden banquet: a week’s notice, security checks, no phones and Coca-Cola for the US president

As President Joe Biden’s time schedule went increasingly awry on his visit to Dublin on Thursday, and the 7pm start time for the drinks reception and official dinner began to look like wishful thinking, there were 12 chefs in the kitchen at Dublin Castle wondering just when to fire up the ovens.

On the menu were Lambay Island crab cakes, which were ready to cook and the saddles of Wexford lamb had been prepped for the oven, but the guest of honour was unavoidably delayed. “It was all stop, start, he’s on the way, he’s not, he’s gone back to the hotel,” says Garrett Duff, culinary director of With Taste, the catering company that was awarded the contract for the official dinner, hosted for President Biden by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

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Having submitted a tender for the event, Duff learned that With Taste’s bid was successful on Wednesday of last week. He met officials in the Department of the Taoiseach the following day, and had exactly a week to plan for the occasion. “It was a very short lead time,” he says, in contrast to the State banquet for Queen Elizabeth in 2011, which was planned over a number of weeks.

The menu was decided by the Department of the Taoiseach, says Duff, who submitted four menus, each with five choices of starter, main course and dessert, for consideration. Lambay Island crab cake, asparagus and chervil, pickled cucumber and wasabi sesame, with crab sourced from Kish Fish, was the starter selected. The main course was roast saddle of lamb, confit lamb shoulder, duck fat fondant potato, rainbow carrots, pea and mint puree, and sherry vinegar lamb jus. Tonka bean, pear and maple syrup mousse tart, pear cream, matcha tea crumb, ginger caramel and compressed pear, got the nod for dessert.

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Cuinneog butter from Biden’s ancestral home of Co Mayo was served with Guinness and treacle bread, and sourdough from Firehouse Bakery in Co Wicklow. Although President Biden had a large tumbler of what appeared to be his favoured Coca-Cola alongside his water glass, guests were served wine, sparkling Irish perry and Kinsale Irish Mead.

But for the 160 guests invited to the official dinner, who began to arrive at Dublin Castle as early as 5.30pm, it would be a long wait until the crab cakes were served at 9.31pm. A tense time too for back of house - 12 chefs, five front of house managers and 55 wait staff, all of whom had to be vetted and accredited to work at the venue. Duff mentions “trying to keep staff occupied and pristine and busy; we took all phones off staff.” But once the guests were seated for dinner, “it was full on”.

Despite the delayed start, there was never any danger that the lamb, sourced from Irish Country Meats in Wexford, would be overdone. “We didn’t cook the lamb till we were ready to go on the starters,” Duff says. The evening appears to have run like clockwork after the delayed start, with all 160 guests served their starters within 15 minutes, main courses over 20 minutes and desserts in 12 minutes, according to Duff, for whom every minute mattered. By 11.15pm, the coffee, tea and petits fours from Chez Emily in Co Meath were on the tables and it was carriages at midnight.