Ferrit & Lee Standing Strong On Midleton's Distillery Walk

Ferrit & Lee Standing Strong

On Midleton's Distillery Walk

Beef

When local chefs Pat Ferriter and Stephen Lee took over the restaurant known then as Raymond’s on Distillery Walk in Midleton in 2017, they had a very good idea of what to expect. After all, they had long been working in the kitchen there, Pat for 12 years, Stephen for 13.

On the side

They renamed it Ferrit & Lee and began to put their own stamp on it and soon they had established their own niche in the food rich area, pleasing both local residents and any visitors that dropped in while coming or going to the distillery and other local attractions. And at the same time also pleasing many local growers, farmers, butchers, breweries, cideries, a certain distillery and various other suppliers.

And then came a scary challenge they could hardly have foreseen: the pandemic Covid 19. With their backs to the wall, they scrambled to survive, offering their customers a Click and Collect service and then outside dining with tables both at the front and rear of the premises. 

And when the hesitant all-clear was given a couple of weeks back, they were ready to serve indoors as well. We were there last week and, having enjoyed a superb lunch, can confirm that the food offering here is as good as ever. Besides, pandemic wise, we were well taken care also, no shortage of precautions and sanitisers.

Paté

Looking back on it, we were in agreement that the main courses were superb, as good as anything we’ve had in a long time. These guys know their meat - they source it in the East Cork area and are well able to get the best from it.

The menu descriptions were tempting and we had a little “argument” as to who would have the lamb, who would have the beef. Their signature dish is the feather blade of beef and they vary the accompaniments on a seasonal basis. Currently, the Slow cooked Jameson marinated featherblade of beef comes with roast carrots, seasonal greens, squash purée, leek and potato croquette and jus. The cooking was perfect, everything about it was perfect.

And it was the same high praise (there was a lot of sharing going on!) for the Braised new season lamb shoulder with apricot, cranberry, and pine nut stuffing, seasonal potato, vegetables, salsa verde and thyme jus, another superb combination of flavour and texture. That stuffing was superb. And, both these dishes came with a bowl of seasonal vegetables, also top class.

Lots of choices here including steak (of course!), Crispy Battered Cod, Chicken Tikka Massala, Egg Penne Pasta, Confit Leg of Duck, Baked Hake and more. 

No shortage of starters either. We decided to share the Jameson caramelised onion and free-range chicken liver paté with mulled quince chutney and warm brioche. There was an excellent little salad with it as well and we were off to a fantastic start. I know there are quite a few good patés around but this is right up there with the best of them and their chutney is also a star.

I completed my Jameson hat-trick with the dessert: the Baldwin’s Jameson ice-cream with chocolate sauce and honeycomb. Not bad but it was the Seasonal Crumble (rhubarb, strawberry and apple) that took the unanimous vote as best of the two! The trio of fruit was a very successful melange while the topping was absolutely perfect, dry and crunchy.

So, not for the first time, nor the last I’d say, these two punters left Ferrit and Lee in very good form indeed. And not a drop of whiskey between us. But we did enjoy a couple of excellent glasses of the house red - their wine list is based on the Liberty Wines portfolio. Our aromatic Castano Monastrell was soft and rich and juicy, an excellent house wine indeed.

Dining NOW Guide. This Week's Choices In Cork. Update #2

 Dining NOW Guide. This Week's Choices In Cork

(Contact me before 1.00pm Wed with a sentence or two, a pic and a link to menu, plan to update regularly) w/e 4/4/2021 Update #2

Click and Collect. At Home. Takeout. Takeaway.

The Metropole Hotel, Cork

has launched an Easter Afternoon Tea at home menu. 

 

The Afternoon Tea is available this Easter Weekend – from Friday 2nd April to Monday 5th April. 

 

On the menu is: 

Sweets: Mini chocolate mousse & berries, Easter cupcakes, Chocolate meringue nest with mini Cadburys cream eggs, Selection of macarons, Mini Chocolate brownie

Sandwich: Free range egg and cress, Chicken & cucumber with sun-dried tomato pesto,  Pastrami and rocket in a floury wrap, Open smoked salmon on soda bread with chive cream cheese & pickled red onion

Sweet scones: Freshly baked scones with whipped cream and a selection of fruit jam

The Afternoon Tea for two people is €50 and the hotel will require 24 hours’ notice to book. Delivery within 15km is also available for an additional €10. To order you can call (021) 4643700

*********

Check out Da Mirco's Easter Weekend Menu Here

That Homemade Cannelloni filled with slow cooked O'Mahonys lamb ragu, ricotta and pecorino cheese looks tempting!

*********

O'Mahony's Fly Stars & Stripes

*********

Check out Dockland menu here

********

Vienna Woods Special

*********

*********

Tom Durcan Will Bring It Home to You

Durcan’s Burger and wings artisan - Taste of #cork at home kit The finest local produce using Hasset’s bakery and Finders Inn dressing. Hand prepared on morning of collection by my son Harry. Order online and have it delivered to your door #nationwide #shoplocal @EnglishMarket More details at https://twitter.com/TomDurcanMeats

**********

Greenes Restaurant

Easter Menu's are now online, lots of seafood options, Macroom Lamb & our 6 course tasting menu. We have also added an Easter Picnic Box available Saturday & Sunday with everything you need included.

Visit www.greenesrestaurant.com/menus to order online.

*********

Metropole Hotel

DINE AT HOME

Our Dine At Home menus are available to order every evening from 5pm-9pm.

Enjoy a range of delectable dishes, cooked to perfection by our Head Chef, available for collection from The Metropole Hotel Cork.

See menus online here: https://www.themetropolehotel.ie/dining/menus/

*********

L'Atitude. On the road again

We’re heading south this week to the foothills of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. It might come as a surprise to some that wine is produced in Morocco, but wine has been made in North Africa for at least 2,500 year...

..Our Volubia red is a perfect ally for food. To say we are excited about this week’s destination would be a slight understatement. There are so many colourful ingredients and flavours to choose from, we’ll find it hard to narrow it down. As usual we will choose a selection that we think will marry best with the wine. 

Email info@latitude51.ie by noon Thurs if you’d like to join our adventure. €50 box for 2 people. Collection Friday 2 April from 5 -6.30

Celtic Ross Hotel

A Happy Easter - at Home

Be it Easter Sunday lunch or dinner for two over the long weekend, allow Chef Shane and his team to take care of the meal prep this Easter. Our Easter meal kit adds a sense of occasion to the weekend, showcasing delicious seasonal produce and the finest ingredients that West Cork has to offer. Treat yourself to a three-course dining experience in the comfort of home with all of the hard work and preparation  completed by the Celtic Ross kitchen team.

Menus and other details here

********

LIBERTY GRILL

We have posted our Home Dining menu for delivery over the Easter weekend

We are also delivering a new “Slow Roast for 4”

Details from our website LibertyGrill.ie @libertygrillcork

*********

On the Pig's Back

Order online or by phone @ 021-4617832

Saturday Night Takeaway - Now Online!

3 Course Menu €30.00 pp

☆B.B.Q Prawns with Creamed Corn and Kale

☆Spiced Chicken Salad with Crisp Leaves, Cherry tomato, Red Onion, Ranch Dressing and Croutons

________

☆Herb Crusted Pan-fried Hake, Corn Succotash, Baked Sweet Potato Wedges and Caper Brown Butter

☆Broiled Marinated Pork Chop, Buttered Savoy Cabbage, Fondant Potatoes with Mild Mustard Sauce

________

☆Baked Raspberry Cheese Cake

☆Mississippi Mud Pie

*********

The Cork International Hotel Have An Afternoon Tea Off With A Twist!

The Cork International Hotel has launched a gourmet Seafood Afternoon Tea just in time for Easter.

The Afternoon Tea will be available for a limited period over the Easter Weekend – available from Thursday 1st April to to Monday 5th April. 

On the menu is: 

Sweets: Dark Chocolate mousse with raspberries, Carrot Cake topped in white chocolate, Coffee slice, Chocolate brownie.

Savoury: Crab and crayfish cocktail Chai Bao, Smoked Mackerel Pate on pressed puff pastry, Beetroot salmon gravlax and grape skewer.

Sandwich: Flaked salmon and pickled cucumber on white bread, open tiger prawn sandwich with garlic and lemon aioli, tuna, lettuce and chilli chutney pinwheels.

 

The Afternoon Tea for two people is €50 and the hotel will require 24 hours’ notice to book. To order you can call (021) 4549800

*********

Farmgate Ready to Feed the Family this Easter

We have spent the last few weeks thinking about the Easter break, so we can have it all organised for you with just one click of a button.

How about the perfect family roast? Delicious slow-cooked lamb (and more!) for a stress-free day and the opportunity to really enjoy quality time your loved ones. Let’s face it, who amongst us cannot claim to be sick of constantly cooking for hungry hounds?

Easter Sunday Feast - €70 for 2 / €120 for 4

Bottle or Red or White wine

Market Fish Plate, Farmgate Brown Soda Bread

Slow Braised Shoulder of Lamb, Ardrahan Cheese & Lamb Croquettes, Lyonnaise Potatoes, Buttered Spring Greens

Strawberry & Framboise Trifle

There's also an Easter Family Feast.  See all the menus and details here

***********

~~Easter menu is now live here~~

Phone lines are now open 0214277387. Get your orders in now for collection this Friday & Saturday

**********

Market Lane

There’s still time to order our heat at home set menu for Easter Weekend. Stock is limited and we've sold out in the past, so our top tip for today is do it now to avoid any disappointment.. Order from http://marketlane.ie by Thursday . #keepgoingcork

***********

The Glass Curtain

With Easter upon us, we have more yummy treats planned for the weekend. The following menu is available from Friday to Sunday:

You may order from 12pm tomorrow (Monday) via the following link: The Glass Curtain At Home

********

Ferrit and Lee



This weekend'smenu now live, get your orders in for Easter Sunday   https://ferrit-lee.clickandcollection.com

*********

Delicious Sunday Lunch at Ferrit & Lee

Delicious Sunday Lunch at Ferrit & Lee

Outstanding Risotto

A brilliant November sun lifted the spirits as we headed to Midleton’s Ferrit & Lee for a Sunday lunch. And the body was well taken care of with a superb and delicious lunch. Service with a smile also increased the satisfaction levels!

They have some very popular dishes here that appear on both the lunch and evening menus. And there are quite a few of their starters that can also be served as mains so all that increases the choices for the customer. And they'll tell you about the specials which are also written on a large blackboard facing the entrance door. 

Fish Cakes

And another thing you’ll notice is the plates. No not those on the table but a couple of eye-catching displays on the walls. Lots of painting around too and window length boxes, well kept and full of greenery.

So what would we have? A bit of reading to do before we made our choices. There was a tempting Ham Hock and Black Pudding Terrine, also their popular Goat’s Cheese Bon Bons, Beetroot Relish, Pistachio Nuts. And more, including another two starters on the board.

Smoked Mackerel Salad

We got two delicious ones. CL went for the Thai Fish Cakes, Asian Salad, Nam Jim Dressing, Miso Mayo. (Starter €8.00 Main €13.50) and was very happy with that, with every element of it including the dressing.

And I did very well too with the Smoked Ballycotton Mackerel Salad, New Potatoes, Apple, Pickled Vegetables, Horseradish Creme Fraiche, Cured Egg Yolk (€8.50). A terrific mix of flavours and textures, quality and well judged quantity and I was off to a flier.

Ballycotton cod

Again there were some favourites on the main list including Slow Cooked Featherblade of Beef and also their Confit Leg of Duck, Braised Apple and Red Cabbage. But our eyes were on the specials.

CL choose the Fish of the Day, Pan Fried Cod with a Spinach Mash, Roast Vegetables and Lemon Hollandaise. Just perfect, local and seasonal at its best as is the norm here.

Ferrit & Lee in the November sun

And I got one of my best risottos ever with Ardsallagh Feta and hazelnuts (16). Absolutely delighted with it - even if it meant there was no room for dessert - and those hazelnuts were a delightful part of it.

So it was two happy customers that headed off into the sun just as more punters checked in. Busy friendly spot and Very Highly Recommended.

A Feast of Small Plates at Ferrit & Lee. The Dynamic Duo of Distillery Walk.

A Feast of Small Plates at Ferrit & Lee

The Dynamic Duo of Distillery Walk.

Salud

Small was beautiful at Ferrit & Lee on Wednesday night when the Midleton restaurant used local produce to skilfully illustrate the theme over three plates, Chefs and owners, Pat Ferriter and Stephen Lee humbly took a bow at the end of delicious meal, enhanced by wines from Liberty Wines and served with a smile by the totally efficient front of house team.

It was a full house when we started at 7.30 with a welcoming glass of the very drinkable House Sangria. In keeping with the festive aspect of the event, Clare and her crew were quite flexible with the wines. If you didn’t fancy the Sangria, you were offered wine instead and if if didn’t like white wine, you were offered red (and vice versa).

The first plate had four elements. The crisp Calamari rings were cooked to perfection and came with a very impressive spiced tomato sauce. The Ballycotton Crab with Jameson, Ginger and lime cured salmon was served on lettuce leaves, another well considered treat.

Plate 1

They kept coming. The Ardsallagh Feta was accompanied by the most flavoursome Beetroot tartare. And then the Beef and Organic Ballinrostig Smoked Cheese croquette looked small but tasted big, terrific beef and a major contribution from the local cheese.

Soon we were tucking into Plate No. 2, again with four offerings. The first, well the first I tried, was the East Ferry Farm Confit Duck Leg Spring Roll. Don’t think you’ll find better. Courgettes are very much in season as I know from the back garden and they featured with Ardsallagh Goat’s Cheese, Red Pepper and Pine Nut Bruschetta in a delicious combination. Jane Murphy (and her goats) has to be one of our top food heroes!

The second quartet

Next up was the Ballycotton Smoked Mackerel and Horseradish Croquette. The flavour here was outstanding. And we finished the savoury bites with the excellent Ham-hock and Rosscarbery Black Pudding Terrine, served with an outstanding Apple Chutney.

It was all good really and the high standard was  maintained right to the sweet end, three not-so-mini desserts! I began with the Strawberry and Custard Cream Shortbread, a little stack of deliciousness.  The Lemon Posset with Foraged Blackberry Compote was a lovely combination and that was followed by the knockout Royal Chocolate Mousse with hazelnut praline.

The sweet ones!

Tapas are generally associated with Spain and the country was well represented by the Liberty wines on the night. The white was the Castano organic Macabeo 2017 and the red, also Castano, was an organic Monastrell 2017 and we had started with the Sangria of course. A good start and a good finish and excellent in between. Ferriter and Lee are quite a duo in the kitchen. Catch them at Distillery Walk!

Feast builds up to a major climax this weekend. See the full programme here

The Perfect Serve. Ferrit & Lee on Distillery Walk.

The Perfect Serve.

Ferrit & Lee on Distillery Walk.

Feather-blade perfection

It is a bright and lively room. No gourmet gravitas here. But Ferrit and Lee know their food and produced evidence aplenty at Wednesday night’s A Taste of East Cork 2017, one of the events of the current FEAST Festival in the area.

The FEAST emphasis is very much on local. Ardsallagh, Jameson, Ballycotton, Leamlara, Jim Crowley, Hegarty’s Cheese, Rostellan Chocolate, are all name-checked on the menu (below). I’ve often maintained that the small things on the menu, in the meal, can shine a light. And so it was here.

Take the crumble, for instance, the foraged berries in particular. What a splendid burst of juice and flavour! It immediately reminded me of picking a few blackberries at the edge of a warm Rougrane cornfield. Local and brilliant. Not flown in from Guatemala or Mexico.

Staying in the hedgerow. How about that elderberry jus with Jim Crowley’s feather-blade? Absolutely outstanding. And the humble mackerel was the highlight of one of the early dishes. Maybe not so humble anymore. They told me here they are scarce this year confirming what Bayview chef Ciaran Scully mentioned a couple of weeks back.

But back to the meal itself in a full and buzzing restaurant, previously known and loved as Raymond’s and now taken over by former employees Pat Ferrit and Stephen Lee. They have a welcoming crew out-front also, mixing East Cork smiles and chat with a calm efficiency throughout a busy evening.

The whiskey, ginger and lime cured salmon, with local crab and pickled fennel, was the perfect Jameson serve. The Ardsallagh cheese, an East Cork food icon at this stage, was perfect too with the honey and lime while the beetroot relish added a wee bit of piquancy.

Ardsallagh cheese

And then came that marvellous mackerel with a delicious roast beetroot (another humble ingredient that has been “rediscovered” in recent years); great too to see the Leamlara micro greens making yet another appearance on local menus.

Oh, forgot to mention, there were two glasses of wine including in the meal, both from Liberty Wines and both made by New Zealander Graeme Paul in the Languedoc in the south of France. We started with his white, the Baron de Badassiere Sauvignon Blanc 2015. This was superb and Paul is in danger of putting some of his fellow Kiwis out of business with this quality. And that standard was maintained with the red, a fruity and spicy Baron de Badassiere Syrah 2016.

The feather-blade is by now quite popular in the Cork area and Ferrit and Lee’s version is in the very top rank, so tender and tasty. That shallot added a sweetness to the dish and the jus crowned it. That little croquet by the way, with Hegarty’s famous cheddar, also played a delicious supporting role.

Salmon and crab

And then not one but three desserts. The crumble, with those berries and the judicious use of ginger-nut, was more or less perfect and the Jameson panna cotta was pleasurably dispatched. I kept the chocolate dark and handsome, ’til last, leaving me looking forward to more good things to come from the Rostellan producer.

By the way, if you are free this Friday evening, a FEAST event is taken place in the courtyard of the chocolate shop in Rostellan. Lobster and prosecco, and chocolate of course, are on the menu.  Ferrit & Lee will be one of eleven local restaurants in the big tent as the festival reaches a climax in the streets of Midleton tomorrow (Saturday). All the details here. 

A Taste of East Cork 2017

Jameson, Ginger and Line Cured salmon, Ballycotton Crab cake and pickled fennel.

Honey and Lemon Ardsallagh Goat’s Cheese Bon Bons, Beetroot relish and bacon.

Pan-fried Ballycotton mackerel, roast beetroot and Leamlara Micro Greens.

James marinated Jim Crowley’s feather-blade of Beef, caramelised shallot, carrots, Hegarty’s Smoked Cheddar croquette and elderberry jus.

A trio of desserts: Apple and foraged blackberry ginger-nut crumble; Rostellan dark chocolate mousse; Jameson Irish Coffee Panna Cotta.

See other posts from FEAST 2017

Rostellan Chocolate Hosts FEAST

Sage Al Fresco

FEAST On the Street. The Main Event.