There must be something about the wilderness which attracts Roisin Hendron. To begin with, she and Simon Dougan set up The Yellow Door restaurant in Gilford, a place which is sort of near Banbridge and sort of near Portadown, but which in truth is not near anywhere at all. It is, in fact, pretty much in the wilderness. In spite of its location, Hendron and Dougan have made The Yellow Door a screaming success, as you would expect of these dynamic people.
Having created one success out of nothing, they have decided to do it all again, opening The Yellow Door Deli and Patisserie, in Portadown.
Now Portadown, with all due respect to the town and its citizens, is not a culinary destination to rival London, Sydney or New York. In fact, Portadown has no memorable food. The Yellow Door is going to change all that, for here is a superb deli and bakery, which will attract the North's food-lovers from far and wide. It is truly a shot of the quixotic in the midst of the quotidian.
"I just always wanted to open a deli," says Hendron matter-of-factly. When her plans to open in Moira came to nothing, she found an old butcher's shop on Bridge Street in Portadown. On the day I visited, only three weeks' after they had opened, they were already setting about converting the shop next door to expand the cafe side of the business.
Hendron and Dougan have unerring taste, so while the shelves of The Yellow Door feature choice things - especially Mrs Bissa's fantastic chutneys and spreads, and excellent spices from the Spice Shop in Notting Hill - it is what they produce here which is particularly special.
The counters are lined with mini beef wellingtons, Thai chicken curry, honey and mustard roasted sausages, chargrilled salmon and sun-dried tomato vinaigrette. There is lovely lasagne, fine tenderloin of pork, expertly made goats' cheese and basil quiche. Salads are as imaginative as everything else, like roast beetroot with Roquefort, or orzo pasta with pesto and roasted peppers. There are few delis on this island with such exciting and expertly made food for sale.
And Hendron and Dougan have yet another kingpin in their artillery. The breads they sell, everything from marvellous croissants - I had one with strawberry preserve and a cup of coffee, and it was sublime - to ciabatta, to slender ficelles, are hand-baked by Rey Hontillosa. Rey - a funky-looking FrenchFilipino - met Roisin in London, and she managed to get him to come to Portadown. He has that assured touch which is the gift of instinctive bakers, and if I lived a zillion miles from Portadown I would drive here just to stock up the freezer with his bread.
The Yellow Door Deli will also operate a catering service, for events as small as a dinner for a dozen, to marquee wedding receptions. Hendron sees synergies between all the sides of the business, with the pastry chef of the restaurant supplying the shop with cakes and pastries, for example; while Dougan talks about offering the sort of food they cook in the restaurant to a wider audience on an everyday basis.
It's a noble ideal, and having already made Gilford into a food lovers' mecca, you don't doubt that this driven pair are about to do the same thing again. Lucky old Portadown.
The Yellow Door Deli and Patisserie, 6 Bridge Street, Portadown, Co Armagh, tel: 08-01762-353528. Open Mon-Sat 9 a.m.-6 p.m.
`He's very mannerly and communicates well with customers - enticing them to try his favourite cheeses or to taste this or that," was how a friend described Craig Nash, who opened his Belfast deli, Feasts, in July last year.
And the description is accurate. Nash is the sort of person to whom you would entrust almost any culinary decision. "Which pasta would you like to try?", he asked. "Whatever you suggest," I replied. "Rigatoni," said Nash. And so rigatoni it was. I brought it home, made a long-simmered ragout, and the dinner was among the best pasta dinners I have eaten.
Cheese and pasta are Nash's twin spearheads in Feasts. Belfast has always lacked true, fresh pasta and tip-top condition cheeses. As Nash explains, the "fresh" pasta we see for sale everywhere has been pasteurised - i.e. passed through steam before being gas-flushed and packed - while Feasts's is made every day with free-range eggs.
It is, simply, a different kettle of fish. The rigatoni was flavourful, had excellent texture and toothsomeness, and took to the ragout with aplomb. The ambitions of Italian pasta cooking - that the pasta should not be simply a bland sounding board for the sauce, and that the texture of the sauce and the pasta should marry well together - were both achieved with ease. The magic lay with the pasta, which did everything we hope pasta will do for us, but so rarely does.
The true speciality of Feasts is not just the making and selling of the fresh pasta, but cooking it, and serving it in the shop. "The sauces are very simple," says Nash, "very much the sort of simple things which Italians would pair with their pasta." He makes a sauce of lemon, basil and Parmesan, or even just basil and tomato. There might be gorgonzola and ricotta, or smoked salmon. The restraint is admirable, but Nash can make it work because his pasta is so good.
One reason it might seem so good is the comfort and friendliness of the shop itself. The walls are a restful yellow, the music is terrific, and it is hard to drag yourself away from Feasts.
Cheeses are the other mainstay of the shop. Working with the Sheridan brothers, cheesemongers in Galway and Dublin, gives Nash access to cheeses at their very best, at a time when most shops in the North source their cheeses from UK distributors. Thanks to Feasts, Belfast food-lovers can now get superlative farmhouse cheeses such as Mine Gabhar from Wexford, or Ardrahan from Cork, as well as excellent Roquefort, Appleby Cheshire, Colston Bassett Stilton and top-quality Parmesan.
Feasts completes the deli equation by stocking choice jars, including hard-to-find salted anchovies (totally different from oil-packed fillets - we will be looking at cooking with salted anchovies in the future) good jerk rubs and bayou rubs, Whittard teas, Bay Tree sauces, even Janet Drew relishes (don't miss the pesto, one of the best you can find), while there are choice meats such as Serrano and Parma hams.
Nash freely admits the influence of Sean and Josephine Calder-Potts's groundbreaking Iago stall in the Cork covered market. But although the influence is there, he has wisely not simply copied someone else's ideas, and has managed to create a deli with character and style.
Feasts, 39 Dublin Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, tel: 08-01232-332787. Open 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon-Fri, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sat.