Food

Fine dining at home: the €100 seven-course dinner in a box

Back to Dine collaboration by Dublin and London chefs aims to offer a fine dining experience at home

Dublin-based chef Temple Garner collaborated with Yann Florio, a MasterChef: The Professionals finalist, to develop a seven-course menu that could be sold in a box.

Marie Claire Digby
Thu Nov 12 2020 - 06:10

A dinner-in-a-box that is the closest thing to sitting down to a fine dining restaurant experience, all seven courses of it, launches this weekend. Back to Dine is a collaboration between Dublin chef Temple Garner, of Bresson and San Lorenzo’s restaurants, and London-based French chef Yann Florio, a finalist in last year’s MasterChef: The Professionals TV programme.

The seven-course dinner for two, plus a treat to be enjoyed the next day, will cost €99.95 when it goes on sale online at noon on Sunday, raising the bar on the meal-kit concept in Ireland.

The food will be cooked at San Lorenzo's on George's Street and the boxes will be prepared for collection from there and from Bresson in Monkstown on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of next week, and every week up until December 23rd. There will also be a limited number of boxes available for nationwide delivery, at an additional cost, by emailing info@backtodine.com.

Garner and Florio communicated via Zoom calls and worked together on the menu, aiming to combine premium Irish produce and French techniques. “We both have a lot to say about food and through that we came up with the menu. We speak the same culinary language,” Garner says. Florio runs Kreidel, a bar, restaurant and events space in Hoxton and is chief executive of catering company Far Out Food.

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The seven-course menu showcases Irish produce and French techniques.

The Back to Dine menu, which will be the same each week, includes a bread course, hors d’oeuvres, starter, choice of two main courses, dessert and mignardises, as well as a bonus course of duck liver parfait.

Despite the lavishness of the menu, Garner insists it will not be complicated to get on the table. He says he was “mindful of keeping it simple” and chose dishes that could be plated up with “no cooking techniques required”.

The box will contain the following:

Bread
Alsace pain d'épices
Honey and warm spices accompanied by a vanilla churned butter.

Hors d'oeuvres
Aged Parmesan sablé candy beetroot, whipped St Tola.
Langoustine cocktail almond tarte fine, Goatsbridge trout caviar and Glenilen crème fraîche.
Pat McLoughlin Christmas spiced beef mini Yorkshire pudding and Pinot mustard.

Entrée
Skeaghanore crispy confit duck leg. Orange and ginger glazed Jerusalem artichokes, green peppercorn jus. Mâche, wine vinaigrette.

Plat
Clare Island organic salmon 'Coulibiac'. Gribiche and truffled egg yolk. Cavolo nero and ratte potato.
Or
Cannon of venison loin, Wicklow Sika. Potato en croute. Chestnut, button mushroom and marjoram duxelle. Red cabbage épices d'hiver and apple.

Dessert
Pistachio clafoutis with blackberry fricassée.

Mignardises
Geranium marshmallow.
Raspberry and cardamom Turkish Delights.
Irish coffee chocolate truffle.

Pour demain
Duck liver parfait, calamansi pickled golden raisins, lavosh crackers.

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