The chef-owner of Miyazaki in Cork recommends a restaurant for special occasions, an otherworldly mushroom farm and a world-class food market
EATING OUT
Kai (pictured above)
20 Sea Road, Galway; www.kaicaferestaurant.com
Jess and David Murphy’s Galway restaurant uses local produce from suppliers like Connemara Smokehouse, Lough Boora farm, and Sheridans cheesemongers on their daily changing menu. Takashi knows Jess from collaborating on pop-ups together: “Jess Murphy has a great palate. For me, she’s the best. She’s from New Zealand, I’m from Japan, and [we did a pop up with] another chef from Finland, and one from Australia. We are immigrants, but we are Irish chefs. We are making Irish food.”
Sage
The Courtyard, Main Street, Midleton, Co. Cork; www.sagerestaurant.ie
There are fewer opportunities for eating out now they have two young children, Stephanie explains, but when it’s a special occasion like a birthday, Sage is one of the places they like to visit.
The Mews
Baltimore, Co. Cork P81 TC64; www.mewsrestaurant.ie
Takashi is keen to check out head chef Ahmet Dede’s cooking in this seasonal restaurant (open from March to September) in the seaside town of Baltimore, where the set and tasting menus only use ingredients from West Cork.
BUYING IN
Ballyhoura Mushrooms
www.ballyhouramushrooms.ie
The source of Takashi’s incredible hen-of-the-wood mushroom, also known as maitake, Ballyhoura is run by an Irish-Scottish couple who both forage and grow their own mushrooms.
English Market
Princes St, Cork City, T12 RW26; www.englishmarket.ie
Takashi visits the English Market on Mondays when he’s not at the restaurant. Takashi: “Most of the fish from K O’Connell in the market is from Castletownbere in West Cork – it’s an interesting area.”
Gubbeen Farmhouse Products
Gubbeen House, Schull, Co. Cork; www.gubbeen.com
Cured meats (including cooking and cured salami-style chorizo), cheese and fresh vegetables from the Ferguson family’s West Cork farm.
Wild Atlantic Way Products
www.wildatlanticwayproducts.com
Wild Atlantic Way supplied the channel wrack seaweed for curing the monkfish. “I forage myself,” says Takashi, “but I don’t often go to West Cork; I go to Rocky Bay, about 20 miles from here but they don’t have as much. It’s a little bit sticky at the end, but the flavour is unreal. The channel wrack we use in Japan is always dried. The first time I used it fresh, I was like, oh, that’s so different. I’ve started using it in the restaurant.”