The Aperitif Guy

A table set for a St Patrick's night dinner Rain. Something Ireland has in abundance. Soft, constant rain. The Gulf Stream brings warm water up the Atlantic to the west coast of Ireland, ensuring the winters are never truly harsh, but it also ensures that the weather systems making landfall on that coast are well and truly water-laden. Cool air off the mountains condenses the water, which then falls as rain. It’s not great news for tourism, but it makes for fantastic agriculture. Ireland has always been a producer of good food. The rain makes for rich pasture for beef and dairy cattle alike. Milk, butter and cheeses are sweet and plentiful. Beef is firm and flavoursome. Small-scale farming and crofting mean that sheep farming produces high-quality lamb and mutton that is much sought-after throughout Europe. However, it is the pig that dominates the Irish domestic table. You won’t go long in Ireland before being served pork, bacon or ham. Any country that has know...

   A good dinner needs to appeal to all five of the senses. We put a lot of effort into making each dish appeal to the eye, as well as the nose and tastebuds. A well-balanced dinner will also feature a variety of textures, too, some of which will stimulate the ear with a crack or a crunch as you bite into them. Before the food arrives, though, before they’ve even taken their first sip of your well-planned aperitif, your guests will have taken in the ‘look’ of your dining room. They will have noticed the delicious aromas of food cooking in the kitchen and perhaps heard the bubble and hiss of pans on the stove. I want to think in this post about how we use that first impression to really set the scene for the dinner that follows. An opulent display for a Venetian event First things first: decide on your overall look. Does the dinner have a theme? If you’re offering an evening of Spanish foods, sunshine colours and terracotta-ware will fit better than crisp white and...