In between leisurely woodland wanderings and the musical talent on offer, three great Dublin based kitchens are set to swap regular bricks-and-mortar service for open air cooking in the scenic surroundings of Glendalough this June.
For Tolu Asemota of IBÍLE, Niall McDermott of Host, and Reggie White of Ranelagh based pizza spot Reggie’s, festival cooking at Beyond The Pale is all about reimagining dishes usually plated with finesse, while ensuring that their offerings remain as tasty as their regulars have come to expect.
If there’s a common thread running through the approaches of all three kitchens it’s keeping things simple, enjoying the buzz, and confidently plating up delicious food cooked with aplomb. IBÍLE promises a menu that’s ‘bold, rooted, and joyful’, Niall McCormack plans to let the fire do the talking, while Reggie is looking forward to “delivering something delicious for festival goers”.
In essence though, as Tolu Asemota says, “festival cooking strips away all the comfortable infrastructure of a permanent kitchen and forces you to be really decisive about what matters. What’s the one bite, the one flavour, the one moment you want someone to carry home? That constraint is actually where creativity lives”.
If there’s one flavour he wants to see linger long after the music fades it’s got to be suya spice. “At its core, suya spice is the flavour of a Lagosian night market — smoky, bold, sociable — and that’s exactly the energy we want people to feel when they’re eating with us at the festival”.
Over at Host, fire is the draw as co-owner Niall McDermott looks forward to the challenge of using open fire equipment and allowing the ingredients to speak with minimal interference. Expect to see McLoughlin’s striploin taking centre stage alongside McNally’s seasonal vegetables and herbs, nicely complemented by some low-intervention wines and a selection of other interesting wines.
Then there’s Reggie White, who’s bringing his cult Rathmines pizza operation to the party. He reckons that, “festival food can be grim enough,” but for him the experience is all about plating up “the ‘greatest hits’ done to the best of our ability – quality you didn’t think possible at a festival.” Value for money is also high on his list of priorities, so he’ll be combining two fan favourites into one, as garlic bread meets meatballs in a gloriously indulgent hybrid tailor-made for hungry festival-goers.
Of course, cooking in a field isn’t without its curveballs. Logistics get looser, variables multiply, and even the best-laid plans can sometimes go sideways as service becomes a test of culinary instinct as much as preparation. For McDermott, simplicity is the key to his approach to flame-led cooking in a field, while dealing with the vagaries of the Irish weather.
As Reggie puts it, “Everyone’s got a plan ‘til they get punched in the face. There’s many unknowns but that’s the fun of it, and the pizza oven is the biggest unknown.” His advice? “Make a million lists and do your best”.
While IBÍLE is a pop-up by nature, Tolu Asemota agrees that weather is always a wildcard. “Nothing humbles a chef faster than wind and rain”. He says the biggest challenge is maintaining quality and consistency at volume without a full brigade or a fixed kitchen, so “everything has to be engineered to travel well, hold well, and assemble quickly under pressure”.
Beyond the plates, there’s something else at play in a space where food sits alongside music and art as part of a broader cultural experience. For IBÍLE, being included in the programme curated by Ali Dunworth is “one more step in proving that West African contemporary dining has a seat at every table — including tables in fields in Wicklow”.
While he is curious to see how the IBÍLE experience lands in a more open, high-energy setting, for all three chefs, the festival is also chance to step outside the day-to-day, reconnect with the buzz, and feed a different kind of crowd.
Niall McDermott has his eye on Groove Armada; while Reggie is looking forward to the camaraderie as much as the cooking – “being out in the open air, having a laugh, doing what we love”.
With only a handful of sittings each day, the advice is to come hungry, come curious and eat well, then drift towards a stage and lose yourself in the music. All in all, it’s all shaping up to be a very tasty weekend.
Words: Martina Murray
With only three sittings per restaurant per day, capacity for these sitdown dining experiences are limited. Bookings via itsbeyondthepale.ie/restaurants
Beyond the Pale takes place from June 12th to 14th at Glendalough Estate, Co. Wicklow. itsbeyondthepale.ie
