Bespoke dining experiences are becoming a feature of the summer festival season, with revellers at Electric Picnic (August 31st-September 2nd) and The Big Grill (August 16th-19th) invited to take their reserved seats at tables for multi-course feasts served between acts.
At Electric Picnic, chefs Derry Clarke and Clodagh McKenna will team up Tesco finest* to present the Banquet at Electric Picnic, a fine dining experience using produce from the supermarket's premium range.
There will be four sittings at the Banquet, at 1pm and 5.30pm on the Saturday and Sunday of the festival, and each will last around two hours. The proceeds of the €120 a head fundraiser will be split between Temple Street Children’s Hospital and Pieta House.
The tasting menu will kick off with a gazpacho amuse bouche, followed by three starters – gravadlax with summer herbs and rosemary soda bread; corn and crab salad; tomato and mozzarella with basil emulsion and Parmesan.
Irish beef fillet from West Cork is the main course and will be served with onion, wild mushroom, leek, curd and truffle fries. There is a vegetarian option with tempura vegetables and Asian dressing replacing the gravadlax, fennel instead of crab in the corn salad, and a main course of gnocchi with a similar garnish as that served with the beef.
Also on the menu are honey roasted peach with amaretto crumble and vanilla ice-cream, and goats’ cheese with beetroot and orange blossom, followed by coffee and petits fours.
The Banquet will be served in the Mindfield Area and the dress code is "Black Tie come Festival Fabulous". Tickets are limited and can be purchased here.
At The Big Grill, an annual celebration of cooking over fire in the leafy surrounds of Herbert Park in Dublin 4, you can take the weight off your feet at Offside, a private dining area where the focus will be on nose-to-tail menus cooked by a rota of guest chefs.
Just 20 seats at the parilla grill, where guests will be able to interact with the chef, will be available for each of the daily sittings at Offside.
The line-up for this feature is still being finalised but one of the sessions will be an Argentinian asado, with Big Grill founder Andy Noonan and Rama Basilio, who will cook six courses, matched with wines from Mendoza.
The Offside area will also be home to A Wild Game Feast, hosted by Nick Weston and Dave Fennings of Hunter Gather Cook, a foraging and cookery school in the UK, who will serve locally foraged ingredients, wild rabbit and pigeon, with natural wines and "wild" cocktails.
The Parilla experience will cost €30 and there will be one sitting each day at 5pm . The Wild Game Feast is on the Saturday and Sunday of the festival, at 2pm. For tickets, seebiggrillfestival.com.
In addition, the Just Eat waiters, who also featured at Taste of Dublin, will be on hand, “queuing for food so you don’t have to”.
