“I’ll forego the foreplay and just get stuck in. We are here to talk about food trucks.” Conor Stevens with some takes about three (relative) newcomers on the outdoor scene that are referred to as ‘food trucks’, although one is a trailer and another a shipping container…

“This is a serious restaurant with a talented brigade, it deserves to develop its own clientele and not merely cater to the dirty weekenders and mini-breakers. Canteen is very much a destination in its own right.” – Conor Stevens

“This quite simply is why we go to restaurants, to have the front and back of house delight us with what they can do, whether we sit inside or out.” – Conor Stevens

“I got to thinking about Baste and how far the venture has come over the course of the plague…” – Conor Stevens

“Although I must admit to a little meal-kit fatigue (not quite Strumpet City hardship), I very much hope that this one carries on and finds a place of its own, it’s a neat concept.” – Conor Stevens

“As I prepare to file this copy there are grim mutterings of a level five lockdown, so takeout and delivery might be the only lifelines for food businesses to cling to.” – Conor Stevens

Supporting the restaurant industry while avoiding dining rooms like the plague: Conor Stevens considers the nature and value of the picnic.

“This is hospitality in real time… Kudos to the first-year hospitality students of TU Dublin Cathal Brugha St.” – Conor Stevens

“I suspect that this place is not really intended for ‘the likes of me.’” – Conor Stevens

“Owners Simon Barrett and Liz Matthews would seem to know what you want, and Chef Paul McNamara knows how to cook, so after some eight months of rough trade on Aungier Street, is the desire to please still there?” – Conor Stevens

“You will struggle to find a finer car park-based restaurant here, or indeed anywhere”. – Conor Stevens

A timely revisit of our visit to Piglet back in 2020…

“I do, however, have one tradition that will persist this year and it doesn’t put in or out on anyone else – Chinese food on Christmas Eve.”

“When it comes to comfort food, however, one category exerts a gravitational pull for me – deep fried things.” We are here to talk fish and chips.

If you’re pining for a flavour of the before life, but would rather experience it from the shelter of your own crib, you have some excellent options.

“At the time of writing, I feel that we are faced with two very real existential threats, two malign forces fighting it out to wrack my nights with spittle-flecked convulsions.”

When news of Allta’s impending opening began to filter through last Summer you could almost hear the sound of many thighs being rhythmically rubbed by Dublin’s gastro-locusts, such were the levels of anticipation.

“There is a lot of potential here but the flavour profiles of too many of the dishes seem curiously polite, when I had been expecting full-throated profanity.”