After 18 months closed, the wine cellar in the basement at Fallon & Byrne on Exchequer Street in Dublin 2, is back with a new look, a new wine list and a new menu, including Neapolitan pizzas from a fancy new pizza oven and fresh pasta made in-house.
Hand-cut jamon Bellota and boquerones add a tapas touch and the reliable cheese and charcuterie boards are back too. Small plates and snacks from €5, pizzas and pasta from €12. There are 50 wines available by the glass and the €1 corkage on any of the more than 200 bottles in the cellar is available Sunday to Tuesday.
You might just be in time too to pick up the September special in the food hall, with fresh pasta and a tub of sauce for two people for a fiver. And if you spend €25 in the food hall, you get a €25 voucher for the upstairs diningroom.
New arrivals in Aldi
If you’re shopping in Aldi this weekend, you’ll see some newcomers on the shelves, as the six winners of the Grow with Aldi programme get their products to market. More than 290 products were entered this year and following a trial run in-store with 56 finalists in June, the final six to make it to the core range were selected.
This year’s new listings are Cookie Dó cookie dough bake roll (€3.99), ChanChan mala black garlic peanut rayu (€3.99), Woodfire & Green burger sauce, blue cheese dip and wing sauce (€3.49), Vanilla Bean Patisserie lemon curd, passion fruit curd and lime curd (€3.69), Blackcastle Farm Irish Piedmontese gourmet sausages (€3.99), and The Fig Tree honey and cayenne dressing and original house style dressing (€2.99).
Sorbets to savour
Ivan Varian's Dalkey Food Company has developed a range of sorbets with unusual flavour combinations including strawberry and basil, and raspberry and tarragon, as well as classic lemon and chocolate and orange. They're made in the Dalkey Food Company's production kitchen above Whelehan's Wines at the Silver Tassie, and came about when hospitality lockdowns decimated demand for the soups that the company supplies to cafes. They're retailing for €6.50 for a 500ml pot and will be stocked by independent food stores including Morton's, Lotts & Co and Nolan's.
As well as being a handy dessert option, suitable for vegans, their creator has another suggestion. "They make great additions to cocktails; the classic Sgroppino cocktail utilises our lemon sorbet shaken up with vodka, and then topped up with prosecco. Or you can make fantastic daiquiris with our strawberry, and Oisin Davis did an extremely delicious raspberry/gin/prosecco cooler on his Great Irish Beverages Instagram page."
