Welcome to September’s Food & Drink Club newsletter

Chef and restaurateur Gaz Smith launches Big Mike’s, his new steak and seafood restaurant in the Blackrock Shopping Centre in Co Dublin next week, and ahead of the official opening, he is offering members of the Irish Times Food & Drink Club a chance to attend a VIP event tomorrow evening (September 10th), exclusively for subscribers to the club.

The event will kick off at 7pm, with a Champagne cocktail welcome drink and a tour of the new restaurant, followed by a three-course steak and seafood dinner with wine, a bespoke one-off dessert supplied by Le Patissier, and an after dinner cocktail, all for €50 per person.

Just 30 tickets for the event will be available, limited to two per person, and they go on sale at noon today. You can click here to read more about the event and to purchase tickets, subject to availability, when they are released.

New look Magazine

A new look Irish Times Magazine launches tomorrow, and you will find expanded food features, and new food and drink columns within the redesigned pages. Corinna Hardgrave will be writing about a takeaway meal every week, in addition to her restaurant reviews. John Wilson’s drinks coverage will include a Q&A in which he will address a variety of topics on alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Lilly Higgins’s column has been given a new direction, and she will be sharing her top tips on how to Spend Less, Eat Well. There will also be a weekly consumer column, Shelf Help.

Competition winners

Congratulations to last month’s subscriber competition winners Marian Hill from Dublin, who has won an overnight stay for two people, with a nine-course tasting menu, at the Eccles Hotel and Spa in Glengarriff, and Trish Fynes, also from Dublin, who has won a three-course meal for four people with wine and welcome cocktails, at The Red Bank restaurant in Carrick-on-Shannon.

Read all about it

In this weekend’s Irish Times Magazine, there is an interview with musician turned baker Gerry Godley, who is creating magic in his microbakery run out of his home in Dublin 8. Corinna Hardgrave has found what she thinks is Ireland’s best value tasting menu, and also reviews a Mexican food truck takeaway. Paul Flynn has recipes for substantial autumn salads that make the most of seasonal produce. Lilly Higgins kicks off her new column with ways to avoid wasting salad leaves, and John Wilson has advice on the correct temperature to serve wine.

Check in with us regularly at irishtimes.com/food for all the latest food and drink news, features and great dishes to cook. If you would like to invite family and friends to join the Irish Times Food & Drink Club, they can do so here. You can also follow us on Facebook here, and on Twitter here.

Thanks for reading.

Marie-Claire Digby