A Year in the Life of Our Specials Board

We update our specials daily to work with the freshest ingredients, the season, and even the weather. Here are some of our boards from the last year. What is your dream meal from these options?

New dishes

Being a chef gives your cauldron of creative thoughts on how foods should mix and marry to create wonderful works of art on a plate that not alone look good but also taste good in theory but reality ideas don't always work and dishes sometimes fail but this is where the specials board comes in it allows you scope to try and test something I may think is a dish amazing the public may disagree

Like with my latest want to add to the menu salt fish mousse the idea being salt fish has always been in Cork's English market have used it to make croquettes in the past and serve it with black pudding . 

So we're heading to the warmer time of the year and I do love a good mousse so we salted some hake and made a salt fish mousse delicious added some beetroot needed something else and capers were added must say I'm very happy with this dish but missing a bit of chrunch the team decided a brown bread tuile to garnish may do the trick and some of Kevin's sunflower shoots to make it pretty 

Early Dinner Menu

Early dinner www.fennsquay.net

Dinner a go-go: Fresh Cod

Tonight's cod with sea spinach & caper & Irish cherry tomato salsa

Traditional with a Twist

When I'm in the kitchen, I love using traditional ingredients, grown locally in an innovative or unexpected way. One example of something we did this week is a traditional French dish I tried. You might want to sit down for this... A fillet of foie gras with beurre blanc and straw potatoes.

American Cuisine Night at Fenn's

This Friday night, Fenn's is holding a special American Cuisine Night in honor of Bruce Springsteen's visit to Cork. 

American recipes with local Irish ingredients made with care and attention by No. 5 Fenn's Quay Restaurant. A perfect follow-up after Cork welcomes Bruce Springsteen the night before. Bring your ticket stub for a free glass of wine. 

Guests will enjoy a carefully planned and lovingly prepared three-course menu for €25 per person. Vegetarian options will be available. We will announce the menu tomorrow, but you can imagine some of the dishes will be similar to those we served on July 4th for dinner specials.

Attended children welcome. Reservations essential: 021 4279527  When you make your reservation, specify "American Night" to be seated with the rest of us. 

American Menu for Fourth of July

In honour of the American Independence Day today, we've included Maryland Crab cakes starter and Mississippi Mud Pie dessert on our specials menu. The Mississippi mud pie defiantly for all you chocolate lovers.

Daily Specials

We love to keep things seasonal at Fenn's Quay so each day our specials are inspired by what the local producers have fresh and available. Sometimes, it is working with something we weren't expecting and that's when it is most fun. Mother Nature has her own schedule of when things are ripe and ready. Right now, we have Sea Samphire in season but it was a week later than last year. Not that we're complaining because it's worth the wait! Here are some of our daily special menus from June to give you an idea of how some things change and some things are constant favourites.

Very Special Cod

Cod from tonight's specials.

Not just a pretty brown scone

Add a bit of texture your scone by toasted some pumpkin & sesame seeds and add them to the dough mixture as you would raisins, when you have cut your scones brush with egg wash and with a spoon sprinkle seeds on top & bake as normal

" A Head By Any Other Name is Appetizing "

 Creating a Dish & Naming It

After many years studying in collage to get my B.A in Culinary Arts where i specialised  in larder one thing struck me whilst flicking through twitter and looking at many chefs uses of the pigs head, i had never tackled one or used it in a dish so it had to be done !!

judging by some of the weighting staffs reaction to the head on my  bench it should have sounded alarms bells about putting it on the specials but i continued on regardless .

 

Myself  and Chef Donal got to work on removing the meat and skin from the head as i had never worked with the head before i followed his lead. As a chef i really enjoy this kind of work it intrigues me as to how the knife moves through the meat. 

The cooking of the meat once rolled took several hours of slow cooking nad resting in the cooking liquer over night .

 DoYou find You Get Attached to a Dish ?

A dish like this you spend time over you become very attached to it and also very proud as it develops into something that you believe and in your mind is a piece of art. At this stage of the development of the dish the customers views and thoughts haven't even entered my head.

Whats Next?

We taste it we approve it !! then its put on the specials to see how the paying customer reacts to the dish .

This is where i chose to just go for broke and call it pigs head croquette with celeriac puree nameko mushrooms (Ballyhoura Mushrooms) and Stonewell cider reduction . I was confident it would sell! 

My confidence was shattered when it was relayed to me that customer reaction was it sounded disgusting ....

if they could only see and taste and know how much work was put into this dish .

That evening i posted my work, the picture above on twitter to see how it would fair it got a blast of encouragement and support i was overwhelmed and confidence was restored but what did come out in conversation whilst chatting to people on twitter was that perhaps i should drop the "Pigs Head" in the dish title, Pat from Alexis in Dun Laoghaire suggested calling it a "crispy pork croquette" , Bryan Mc Carthy from Springfort suggested i call it "Piggy Noggin" 

Lunch Special "Crispy Pork Croquette"Sir?     

The answer to this question was yes please and the dish was proclaimed a success even the staff who didn't like the idea where won over . I was pleased with the name change but it began to question how i word my dishes, whilst tastes are changing and people are being more adventurous wording of dishes still has to be more carefully through out or do I carry on and try and convert the public to the lesser known cuts ?or are these unusual cuts exclusive to the higher end restaurants where unusual is the norm ?.........

Saturday Brunch at Fenn's Quay

We debuted our new Saturday Brunch menu. Here are two classics on their way out of the kitchen to the table, where they were eaten by Evin & family.

Boiled eggs and soldiers made with our chunky toast, served with Marmite.

Feirm Úr buttermilk pancakes served with fresh yogurt or crème fraîche, strawberry balsamic & black peppercorn syrup (shown below with maple syrup, fresh mint, strawberry slices, and apple) or rashers, if you prefer.

PuntSaver Menu

We have a new Punt Saver menu!

A Celebration of Irish Food

A celebration of Irish food with Fenn's Tasters. Just €2 each and featuring some local favorites:

• Goatsbridge Trout Caviar with Irish Micro Herbs
• Seared Scallop with Rosscarbery White Pudding
• Ardsallagh Goats Cheese with Rock Asparagus
• Fenn's Homemade Beetroot Fudge and Black Pepper
• Fenn's Basil Fudge
• Ballyhoura Mushrooms with Sea Asparagus

New Prosecco Cocktails on the Menu

New Prosecco cocktails to celebrate summer, rain or shine.