April 2023
Aniar, the name of Dr. JP McMahon’s Michelin star restaurant in Galway, is an Irish word meaning ‘westerly; from the west’. This small, beautiful restaurant located on Dominic St in the heart of Galway city has been operating for eleven years and we visit it at a moment of transition and reflection. Dr. McMahon has just published his third book, An Alphabet for Aniar, which is a collection of musings on what he has learned over the last 11 years.
Musings
I am familiar with Aniar. Having eaten here last Summer and from being sent to collect deliveries which were intended for Cava, JP’s other restaurant, and the place that I have worked for the past year and a half. Today, however, is a different kind of experience, as we are served a mini tasting menu of the highlights of the Aniar menu. It is just ourselves in the restaurant with JP at the top of the table explaining the journey of Aniar so far. It is very casual, while the food we are served is literally of Michelin quality.
In typical Galway fashion it is pouring down rain outside. I have grown very used to the rain in this town and as I settle into my chair, I feel a bizarre sensation of being at home. This sensation is multiplied as we are served brown bread with whipped butter. The bread is warm, soft in the middle and crisp on the outside. The butter melts into it instantly and I am transported immediately to my grandmother’s kitchen table, where I spent many a long rainy afternoon slathering butter onto brown bread with Kerry Radio blaring in the background and pots and pans clattering in the kitchen. I owe much of my culinary talent to my Gran who fostered the little baker in me from a young age, despite the absolute mess I would make and the often inedible things I would produce. My culinary skills have improved drastically since then, particularly through the experience I have gained through my colleagues in Cava. Much of what we know and understand about food we learn from those around us. There is little pleasure in preparing a meal to be consumed alone, and even less to be learned from it as there will be no feedback.
There are many flavours in Aniar which absolutely do not ring any bells in my childhood gastronomic memory. This is because Aniar is a true expression of Irish food as a concept, it is not necessarily a reality. Irish food has a very dynamic and complex history, influenced hugely by global cuisines. Now more than ever we can see this influence in every town and village across Ireland, where restaurants and cafes of any ethnicity can be found. This is the beauty of our country for me. We are a nation of oats, milk and honey. A nation of abundance in beautiful and plentiful produce. Our cuisine is not distinctly Irish, it is in fact the amalgamation of many global cuisines. Ireland is a land of plenty. Of saints, scholars, farmers and fishermen. We are also a nation of hospitality, and so perhaps the strength of our culinary tradition is in what we share with others. We share our bountiful produce and in turn receive wonderful flavours from other gastronomic traditions.
Irish Food will never be what we want it to be unless we understand the historical forces that underlie its global complexity. JP Mc Mahon
As patron of BA(Hons) in Botanical Cuisine, JP very generously gives us all a copy of his new book, An Alphabet of Aniar- Notes for a new Irish Cuisine. In the book JP discusses the presence of spices in Irish cuisine, dating back centuries. “Irish Food will never be what we want it to be unless we understand the historical forces that underlie its global complexity” (McMahon, 2023). This demonstrates the conversational nature of Irish food. It is not definable because it has always been an ongoing conversation, peppered with influences from all over the world as different nations have joined our dinner table over the centuries.
Our afternoon in Aniar is defined by beautifully executed dishes, which probe questions about what Irish cuisine might have been, had we been left to our own devices. Having said this, this Irish cuisine is also part of another conversation, one in which we try to position ourselves in a global context as a nation with a valid contribution to the world of gastronomy.
The techniques that make food like this possible are of course inherited from others, the only thing different is the ingredients being sourced exclusively from this island. Certainly, most Irish people have never eaten an oyster, not to mind an oyster decorated with sea herbs. On top of this, the modern Irish public is more adept in the tempos of music from Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, and not of the transient fiddle playing of Martin Hayes the punctuates dinner service in Aniar. Irish cuisine is the result of many generations of dichotic listening, and it is all the better for it.
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