The Salt Project at D-8TE
The Salt Project at D-8TE
The street food dining experience is here to slay, stay and play with your notion of what gourmet food is. Caomhán de Bri of The Salt Project is a stalwart poster boy for the thriving Irish street food scene. D-8TE at Roe & Co Distillery celebrates an array of cuisines with everything from street food to fine dining. They offer a place where chefs can get creative by crafting a carefully curated tasting menu to the tastes of Roe & Co whiskey.
The Salt Project, which has set up camp at D-8TE in the Power House Garden at Roe & Co Distillery, is a street food innovator. Caomhán de Brí specialises in developing hyper-local menus to suit where he lands from coast to coast.
This means that the produce and history inspire their menu in a specific area. Local producers are tracked down, and only their best, most seasonal ingredients are used to create dishes of the moment and the highest quality. While being an intensely time-consuming way of designing a menu, it is inherently sustainable. In addition, it means the chef can engage with the local community deeply and meaningfully. They are as much about the local producers as their craft in the kitchen. This cooking style is a shift in line with the evolution of a fast-moving Ireland that will no longer compromise on quality or provenance.
Caomhán has worked in professional kitchens for over a decade, including a year in London at Gordon Ramsay’s Michelin-starred restaurant. He’s also a recent graduate of TU Dublin’s new ‘Botanical Cuisine’ course. The first ‘farm to plate’ culinary degree programme in Europe, where Irish Chef JP McMahon is a patron.
Caomhán has devoted endless hours to turning his vision into reality in recent years. He is keen to perfect his craft and ensure that his offering is the best that it possibly can be. The high energy, multi-sensory atmosphere of D-8TE in the Power House Garden at Roe & Co Distillery makes a perfect home for Salt Project’s bright, theatrical, quintessentially Irish dishes.
His most recent menu landed at D-8TE in the Power House Garden at Roe & Co Distillery at the beginning of March. It runs through this Paddy’s Day extra-long weekend before finishing up on March 20th. The menu developed for this modern Irish takeover starts off with his Blaisíní tasting menu consisting of small plates including the showstopper, Johnston Mooney & O’Brien cheese & onion Tayto tart – a deliciously innovative take on iconic Irish nostalgic flavours. Expect a flavour bomb of a main course dish, ‘an gairdín’, that celebrates the humble beetroot. Mc Nally’s zero waste organic beetroot is smothered in a miso glaze sauce with toasted sesame are to die for. Not to mention his take on a roast chicken and stuffing dinner with his ‘dumplíní’ course.
This menu boasts Caomhán’s own organically grown vegetables supplemented by other ingredients from Conor McHugh of Coolree Cottage Farm in Naas, Co. Kildare. In addition, the traditionally milled flour used for his flatbreads is sourced from The Little Mill Company in Co Kilkenny.
Whiskey cocktail pairings that work alongside these modern Irish dishes include a Roe & Co Cask & Keg Citra Edition, Fruit Salad Liqueur, White Vermouth with Apple Marigold a Roe & Co Single Malt, Fermented Blueberry, Móinéir Irish Blackberry Wine, with a Cucumber and Fennel Foam. These whiskey cocktails are inspired by the tastes of the Irish coast and have been curated by the Roe & Co Distillery’s talented bartenders. So is there a better way to celebrate St Patrick’s Day?
D-8TE offers diners the chance to experience a full tasting menu for €40 pp, with opt-in drinks pairing for €30 pp. The Power House Garden is open on Thursday and Friday evenings, Saturday afternoon until the evening, and Sunday afternoon until 16:00, and you can book your table here.
Please drink Roe & Co responsibly.
Visit drinkaware.ie for more info
