Chapter One

Tom Sietsema, restaurant writer for Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post, wasn’t holding back. “If angels made nursery food, this is what it would taste like,” he wrote. Blimey. And what had caused this visitation by the cherubs? It was the Chapter One signature dessert of “Flavours and Textures of Irish Milk and Honey.” The dish is one from the pantheon of creations that acquire mythic quality, but the funny thing is that Ross Lewis and his team actually have a brace of these in their larder: the ravioli of Coolea cheese with braised oxtail; the pig’s tail stuffed with Gubbeen bacon and razor clams; the carpaccio of Cork spiced beef with king oyster mushrooms. The food is only one element of the Chapter One experience, of course, for the restaurant also defines Irish hospitality in the most profound, myriad and generous way.