It had the potential to overheat, or at least reach boiling point. As it turned out, events simmered along nicely when seven top chefs were thrown together yesterday to announce La Feile Bia, a new national day for Irish food. Things did get saucy though. John Howard, proprietor of Le Coq Hardi, in the news recently for being frequented by Charles Haughey and Terry Keane, smiled when asked if the revelations increased custom. "It hasn't had a phenomenal affect," he said, "but it hasn't done any harm."
Debunking the myth of hot-tempered culinary rivals, the chefs sipped champagne and swapped recipes at the ICON centre at the Leopardstown Racecourse in Dublin. La Feile Bia tomorrow will involve 2,500 chefs and restaurants north and south collaborating to promote Irish food.
Menus will feature dishes made only from fresh Irish produce. The event, the first of its kind, was officially launched by the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food, Ned O'Keeffe.
Derry O'Rourke, owner of L'Ecrivain in Dublin and commissioner general of the chef association Euro-Toques Ireland, was keen to emphasis the importance of local produce. "We need to give food an Irish identity. Why have lasagne on the menu, for example, unless you are an Italian restaurant," he said, with an accusatory nod to almost every low- to mid-priced eaterie in the State.
The wrath of the chefs was also reserved for the increasing number of restaurants who serve the ubiquitous sun-dried tomato.
"They are all very well in Temple Bar," said Terry McCoy of the Restaurants Association of Ireland and the Red Bank Restaurant in Skerries, "but not in the rest of the country." Terry said the Irish suffered from a culinary inferiority complex which has seen us looking to the French for quality sophisticated dishes over the years. However, we hadn't yet succumbed to the cult of the celebrity chef rampant in Britain.
For more information on La Feile Bia, phone (01) 677 9901 or look up the Internet site at www.adlib.ie/eaterie