If you’ve ever been at a restaurant dining table, eating something wonderful and thinking “I wonder how they did that”, the Glovers Alley Kitchen Experience, which launches on July 6th, could provide some of the answers.
Available to just four guests at a time, on the first Friday of every month, the fully immersive experience takes diners into the kitchen, where they spend three hours with the chefs, before going back out front and sitting down to a four-course lunch with Champagne and wine pairings.
Professional kitchens are mesmerising places, and this one is no exception. Somewhat unusually, it is a big space, so there is plenty of room for guests to get involved, without feeling they are in the way.
After a 9am welcome briefing from chef patron Andy McFadden, guests will put on their aprons and meet the rest of the team, including head chef Philip Roe and executive pastry chef Aoife Noonan.
Bread-making is the first task of the morning, and there is an opportunity to assist McFadden as he deftly kneads, rolls and shapes the restaurant’s three signature breads.
War on waste
As he powers through the task – “There’s nothing therapeutic about making bread when it’s for 60 people” – chef McFadden dishes out fascinating nuggets of information about how his kitchen works. War on waste is a constant theme: “Nothing goes in the bin” he says.
No pressure then as chef Roe hands over his filleting knife with instructions to have a go at replicating his preparation of a beautiful sole. He is patience personified as we three rookies on a press preview gingerly separate flesh from bone and skin.
Next, we learn how to shell and trim scallops, and within minutes of meeting the still-alive Scottish-sourced shellfish, we are eating them. The restaurant’s dazzling scallop ceviche, tomato, radish, dill starter is assembled before our eyes. That’s one of the best parts of this experience, you get to learn about the component parts of several dishes, how they are made and what they bring to the plate.
Hand-cut beef tartare, made with Hannan Meats 80-day salt-aged sirloin, and the restaurant’s multifaceted lamb dish with flavours of ratatouille, are also plated up for the kitchen interlopers to taste.
The day’s veg order arrives and is immediately dived upon by a cluster of chefs, checking its quality and snaffling their requirements. It’s interesting to watch, like supermarket sweep, only much more discerning. New potatoes are rejected, for being too big, and returned to the supplier.
Sensational souffles
Then it’s time to join Aoife Noonan in her pastry kitchen and learn the secrets of sensational souffles. It takes just 12 minutes – and years of experience – for Noonan to turn out the restaurant’s citrus souffle with Manjari chocolate sorbet, and about as many seconds for it to disappear.
After three hours in the kitchen, it's time to eat – again – this time seated front of house. A glass of Champagne kicks off a four-course lunch, with wines paired by head sommelier James Brooke. The food is delicious, as you'd expect – but understanding a bit more about how it is crafted, and who is behind it, makes it memorable.
Guests leave with a generous goodie bag – ours contained a Glovers Alley apron, chocolates, samples of the prawn oil we’d seen made, pickling liquor, rhubarb chutney, tea-soaked prunes – and a still-warm loaf of walnut bread.
The kitchen experience with lunch, Champagne and wines, costs €145, and participants can invite a guest to join them for lunch for an additional €95. Pre-launch booking has been strong, so additional dates have been added on the following Fridays – July 20th, August 17th and September 21st – and there is still availability on October 5th, November 2nd and December 7th. To book, email info@gloversalley.com, tel 01-244 0733.
