From magnificent Michelin meals to an outstanding ham and cheese toastie: The best things we ate in 2022

Dan Hannigan

Head chef, Orwell Road, Dublin

Without a doubt, the best thing I ate this year was the turbot in Liath. I got engaged to my partner Dee in the summer and we went to Liath afterwards. The evening began with [chef-proprietor] Damien shouting ‘Did she say yes?’ when we walked in, which would have been very awkward if she hadn’t! The whole meal was amazing, but the turbot, caviar and beurre blanc was the best thing I’ve eaten this year, and beyond. It was incredible, simplicity at the highest level and probably the best fish dish I’ve ever eaten.

Mark Moriarty

Chef and TV presenter

The best thing I ate this year was at Opera in Paris. I have been following the pastry chef Cedric Grolet for years on social media and marvelled at his creations. I had always wondered if his desserts were style over substance, so I made my way to one of his patisserie stores. After queuing for 30 minutes I selected the rum baba. It was absolutely incredible. Picture perfect but more importantly a brilliant balance of flavours, textures and seasonings. A master at work and worth adding to your next Paris trip.

Victory Nwabu-Ekeoma

Editor, Bia! Zine

Some of the best things I’ve eaten this year have come out of humble home kitchens. For some of these things, I must take a little credit, but for most, I thank those whose doors have opened to me and invited me in. One dish I feel privileged to have tried this year is called meen, or fish nirvana. This dinner offering was prepared by my mum’s Indian colleague during what I call the deep-eat-search phase of my immigrant food project, Bia! Zine. Chilli spiced tilapia chunks were shallow fried then poached in a ginger, curry leaf, and coconut milk sauce and wrapped in a banana leaf. The fish swims in a bath of what I imagine the place of perfect happiness and peace to be like. My first bite was a transcendental experience. With it came deep enlightenment into the places an unassuming type of fish can take me.

Russ Parsons

Irish Times Magazine columnist

For me, context matters as much or more than any actual dishes. So, in the absence of many big deal meal extravaganzas this year (we’re still getting back in the swing of fine dining), I’d say the best thing I ate in 2022 was last weekend, after a beautiful frosty walk through the woods at Dunmore East with our good friends. We stopped in at our old reliable Strand Inn for a bowl of their seafood chowder. On an objective basis, I would put this chowder up against any I’ve had – it is creamy but complex and chockablock with chunks of good seafood. But on a subjective basis – chilled to our bones, parked in front of the fireplace with our friends and our dogs, this was a memorable meal.

Chef-owner, The Tannery, Co Waterford

We took a short ferry ride across to the tiny island of Tavolara, off the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia. The boat nudged meekly past shimmering yachts with expensive-looking people. There was a seafood restaurant right on the beach called Da Tonino; the gangplank of the ferry almost reached its front door. There were 10 of us at a table on the water’s edge where we ate crisp fritto misto and spaghetti vongole washed down with cool jugs of local wine. At lunchtime in peak season, the large restaurant bustled with noisy Italian families forking through whole sea bass. On our last day we had uncovered a gem. We all swam while we waited for the return ferry; I was already wistful. The best meals are about creating memories, and this was up there with the very best of them.

Jess Murphy

Chef-owner, Kai, Galway

I think the best thing I’ve eaten this year is the cutest and most delicious little Argentinian-inspired biscuit made by Grace and Nico from Gorditas. Think two beautiful biscuits (I say biscuits, not these weird bendy in the middle American-style soft floppy disks) sandwiched together with a layer of dulce de leche made with beautiful Irish cream and then ... yes, dipped in chocolate. Not only are they absolutely gorgeous, but they come in stunning packaging like a little box of luxury chocolates. I came across these in lockdown, via Holly Dalton, and then of course had to order 24 boxes for the Kai crew for Christmas.

Richie Castillo

Chef and co-owner, Bahay, Dublin

The best thing I ate this year was in Lula Café in Chicago. We did a food trip to Chicago, the home of Kasama, the world’s first Michelin-star Filpino restaurant, and we ate at places that had been on our list for a long time, including Smyths, Elske and the Loyalist. But the place that blew us away was Lula Café, which is where I got a camomile cheesecake with mint oil. I was so blown away by this that I kind of blacked out until I was halfway through eating it. It was light and delicate in both texture and flavour, yet you could taste every element of the dish. Such a simple idea, yet so hard to execute, but they did it flawlessly. It was mindboggling.

In Ireland, the best thing I ate this year was something that was also a bit mind boggling, and took me by surprise. Graham Herterich of The Cupcake Bloke has had an incredible 2022, with the release of his book, Bake. We were lucky enough to experience Bake in real life at his pop up at the Old Yard, where we had his cream cheese scone, with caramelised white chocolate, green olives, lemon curd, dressed with olive oil, which was outstanding. It took us by complete surprise. The caramelised white chocolate and cream cheese, matched with the briney sharpness of the olives, truly was not a flavour combination we would have expected to get, never mind love as much as we did.

Órla Dukes

Creative director, Host & Co hospitality PR

I eat for a living, which can be both a pleasure and a peril. I’ve had some of the very best food I’ve ever eaten on this island this year, but out of respect to the many friends and clients who made those lovely things, and my own strong sense of self-preservation, none of those can be the final pick.

Masala y Maiz in Mexico City was my meal of the year, a flawless, lunatic, joyous procession of layered, complex bites and small plates where the flavour dial was permanently set at 11. Mexican-born chef Norma Listman and her husband chef Saquib Keval, born in the US of Indian farmers from Ethiopia and Kenya, bring their different cultures together in what is called mestizaje, which is about as loaded a term as their food is full of flavour. Meaning mix, or blend, the menu in their cool little CDMX restaurant is a literal post-colonial mashup of foodways from Mexico, South Asia and East Africa, an in-between magical overlap, intensely personal and still powerfully rich in echoes and histories.

The food court of the gods, where it doesn’t feel weird (because it isn’t a cruise ship) to have paratha, mole and berbere on the same menu, or same plate. Unexpected combinations make uniquely new and delicious things to eat. Sensationally surprising. And I also know that the best thing I’ll eat before the end of the year will be my mother’s turkey consommé - my favourite part of every Christmas.

The Loose Cannon ultimate cheese toastie.

JP McMahon

Chef-owner, Aniar, Galway

I would describe myself as somewhat of a professional eater, which is to say that I eat as part of my job, in order to learn, develop and enjoy food. It’s difficult to not be critical when eating. That doesn’t mean I always criticise the food, but rather I try and think about the ways in which it affects my taste buds and makes me feel, and also if it’s well balanced.

To choose the best thing I ate this year is an arduous activity, and you may be surprised after all my eating around the country and abroad, in some of the finest restaurants on the planet, that the best thing I ate this year was the toasted ham and cheese sandwich in Loose Canon wine bar in Dublin. A close second was Clare Smyth’s famous Charlotte potato that she serves in Core, her three-Michelin-star restaurant in London.

Taste is a complex phenomenon made up of momentary desires, memories, and our emotions. While being limited to our mouths and brains, our imagination remains unlimited in the way in which we can interpret these sensations. Thus, taste is often very subjective and dependent on many contingent circumstances. When the stars align, a toasted sandwich is the best thing in the world.

Kwanghi Chan

Chef-owner, Bites by Kwanghi, Dublin

Thinking back on the food I have eaten in the past year, a few that really stood out in my mind. I’m at total sucker for dim sum, Chinese morning and lunch bites, and when I was in London we were recommended to go to Park Chinois, a fine-dining dim-sum place and much more, with a jazz band playing on the stage. It was very good, dim sum refined.

At the Big Grill festival I was set up beside Chris Lilly, the legendary pit master from the the US, and he was cooking his signature smoked chicken in Alabama white sauce. I was there for the whole process, doing the pit cooking, and it was amazing. The chicken was incredible just fresh out of the pit. I will remember this for a long time.

And you know what, I love a simple home-cooked lasagne. Michelle, my wife, does a great one. I love it with lots of white sauce and, of course, chips and coleslaw. An Irish classic.

Niall Davidson

Allta, Dublin

The best things I’ve eaten in 2022 are an incredible an anchovy aged for 12 years inside in a green chilli in Bar Vermouth in Catania, Sicily; life-changing carabinero prawns, cooked on a salt plancha and served tableside at Ramiro, in Portugal; the rabbit and langoustine dish I was lucky to eat at Liath, Blackrock; sardines on toast, with lardo, at Prado, in Lisbon; Ciaran Sweeney’s horseradish nantais sauce, served with Burtonport crab, sensational. And, of course, my wife’s borscht.

Ahmet Dede

Chef-owner, Dede, Baltimore

The best thing l ate this year was octopus cooked on fried wild rice and served with yeasted spicy Bearnaise sauce. It was by Jeremy Chan at Ikoyi in London; a super tasty, crispy, spicy, juicy dish. It was kind of a fried street food, but amazingly delicious. l could eat good few of them in one go. My type of eating.

Corinna Hardgrave

Irish Times Magazine restaurant critic

I visited Aimsir twice this year. It was spectacular on both occasions. Although it’s nearly impossible to pick a favourite from the 18-course menu, many of which are just tiny bites, one that stood out on my September visit was a new dish built around cod that had been caught off the coast of Co Wexford.

As you’d expect, the fish was cooked precisely. What elevated the dish was the foaming charred brown butter sauce, which brought waves of nuance, anchored in the savoury note of Ard Mhacha shiitake mushrooms, with sweetness from sweetcorn, and an earthiness from toasted oaks; all of this richness kept in check by tiny cubes of lovage jelly.

This dish epitomised everything about the level of detail that goes into cooking at this level. When a table goes quiet, you know that something special has happened.

Tony Parkin

Chef-owner, The House Restaurant, Cliff House Hotel, Co Waterford

Without doubt the best thing I ate in 2022 was a turbot, lobster and caviar dish at Woven by Adam Smith at Coworth Park in Ascot in the UK. It was completely mind-blowing, with really complex flavours and classic cooking techniques. The mushroom sauce that accompanied it really did bring the whole dish together, along with showing off Adam’s great skill as a classical cook by letting all the ingredients shine.

The dish was completely over the top in all the right ways and the sort of dish you’d expect to get in a three-star restaurant in the middle of Paris. It was also the last meal I had in the UK with my wife before moving to Ireland, so it was very memorable, and we had the added bonus of staying in the hotel that night.

Gráinne Mullins

Chef and owner, Grá Chocolates, Galway

Looking back at 2022, I have eaten so many delicious dishes. We saw the world opening back up and I was thrilled to get back out into restaurants. I have eaten plenty of exceptional food both in Ireland and abroad this year, but one of the stand out meals has to be in my favourite Galway restaurant, Ruibín. Everything on the menu is always a win, but I cannot go there without ordering their Korean fried chicken. It is so delicious, smothered in honey butter sauce and served with pickles and a daikon salad, making it taste so fresh.

Barry Sun

Chef-owner, Volpe Nera, Blackrock

In November, I was in London and had a very simple but pretty perfect dish of game broth with slow cooked pheasant egg yolk and chanterelles in Lyle’s. It was so simple, I wasn’t even vaguely impressed when they brought it to me – a small soup bowl filled with what looked kind of like dirty dish water.

But wow, one spoon and it took me over completely, an overwhelming huge umami hit. The broth was so deeply flavoured, just gorgeous, and the pheasant egg yolk added a creamy, silky mouthfeel along with the slippery, savoury mushrooms.

There weren’t any fancy, cheffy additions, just some straightforward chopped chervil with its delicate anise and parsley flavour sprinkled on top. But it was what I have always most enjoyed both eating and making myself - the clarity and confidence in letting food and flavours speak for themselves.

Mickael Viljanen

Chef-owner, Chapter One by Mickael Viljanen, Dublin

I’ve eaten a lot of great things this year both in Ireland and in different locations around the world, but the best was a dish I ate in Cote, a Korean steakhouse in New York.

I visited New York in August on a work trip with Mark Moriarty and Graham Neville, and we ate in some fantastic places, but the highlight for me was our visit to Cote. Their kimchi wagyu “paella”, which is a dish of kkakdooki kimchi, wagyu beef fried rice with a soft poached egg, was absolutely delicious – so rich in umami, my mouth is watering thinking about it now. It was comfort food at its very best.

Manuela Spinelli

Euro-Toques Ireland

When asked what was the best thing I ate this year, my head started spinning… in truth, I ate a lot of very interesting things in Ireland and abroad.

The concept of best for me is difficult to define, as it goes hand in hand with my mood as much as the quality of what I eat. To make my life easier, I am choosing amongst dishes I ate in Ireland.

Generally, if I remember a dish or a flavour, it’s because it triggers something on my palate and in my mind.

My friend Mayre Modrego was visiting from Spain and I took her to Library Street, a place I love as it’s vibrant, informal and always delivers on using Irish ingredients. Kevin Burke’s decadent chargrilled turbot with brown butter Bearnaise sauce was most definitely a memorable dish: simple in flavours, cooked to perfection and delicious.

Andy Noonan

Big Grill Festival, Dublin

Choosing the best thing I ate this year was tough because I travelled a lot this year for Big Grill R&D, to Texas, New York City, Portugal, France, Spain and the UK. But one thing sticks clearly in my mind and it was the cheeseburger in Joe Junior, in New York. It’s a quintessential old-school NYC diner, with down-to-earth staff and a setting reminiscent of the NYC I would have grown up seeing on TV.

Being spoiled for choice and armed with a long list of places to visit (we visited 32!), we were lucky to have Nick Solares taking us around the city, so we followed his lead and ordered the cheeseburger, rare, no plancha (the Nick Solares way – ask for it) with no ketchup or rabbit food (as Nick calls it). It comes with pickle and coleslaw on the side. Succulent and juicy-to-the-end with a crispy mahogany crust, it was the best burger I’ve ever eaten – and for $8! We tried lots of the city’s other best burgers too, but it wins, with Billy Durney’s Red Hook Tavern dry-aged burger coming a close second.

Anna Haugh

Myrtle restaurant, London

I have to admit after having my son Oisín, I get far more joy from everyday food experiences, and trying to convince him to eat some new things. But I think the best thing I’ve eaten recently wasn’t during feeding time for the little man, but it was a dinner date I had with him at Library Street. It was their Iberico pork chop, expertly marinated, seasoned, cooked, rested and carved. This was no everyday pork chop, the marbling and rendering of the fat was simply wonderful. Kevin Burke clearly knows his way around a chargrill. Chefs often talk about simplicity and not messing with an ingredient, but the truth is, it is often the toughest form of cooking.