Aniar Restaurant and Solaris Teas Create New Tasting Experience
Two of the country’s most innovative food industry entrepreneurs have joined forces to create an exciting new dining experience – combining fine dining and tea.
Michelin Star Aniar Restaurant and award-winning Solaris teas have together created three new tea blends designed specifically to complement Aniar’s new tasting menu.
“The idea of cooking with tea, of using it in desserts and as an after dinner palate cleanser is not new,” says JP McMahon. “However, the idea of making a tea from entirely indigenous ingredients (all from the West of Ireland) and using this tea to further explore our relationship to the local landscape is very much part and parcel of the terroir philosophy at Aniar. Utlan and I work closely together to enhance the food experience at Aniar. As well as cooking some of the local vegetables in tea, we’re developing a signature blend for a tea sorbet, which will feature as a new course on our tasting menu. Our pastry chef Nicola is experimenting at the moment with blends. In addition to this, Joerg has prepared an after-dinner blend of entirely domestic ingredients. This will be offered as part of our tasting menu, as a conclusion to round up the food experience of the customer. We’re making every element of the experience of Aniar point towards our overall ethos: exploring our local terroir in an effort to move Irish food forward.”
“Tea is so versatile – you can create a lot of different flavours and tastes,” says Joerg Mueller the award winning entrepreneur behind the Solaris brand, “so we thought, let’s take it a little bit further and create a pure tasting experience, bringing it onto the Aniar menu. We’re starting to look at tea a little bit differently – seeing how we can incorporate it into different techniques of cooking like steaming, roasting and poaching with tea.”
The three new blends of tea, created exclusively for Aniar, will use regional plants and herbs to complement the menu and will include; a fennel-based tea for cooking with, a palate-cleansing Spring sorbet made from local berry and birch leaf, and finally, an uplifting palate-cleanser based on lemon balm and red clover.
The joining of the creative duo, JP and Joerg, to create something exceptional makes sense, “As a medical herbalist, I’m very passionate about local plants,” adds Joerg. “With foraging, it’s great to see people connecting with what’s on their doorstep. Solaris has a similar ethos to Aniar – we’re both very passionate about what we do. We have a common passion for local, for high quality produce. We have a common desire to bring something unique to the table, and I believe we’ve done that with our new joint tea tasting menu,” he says.
Aniar’s Tasting Menu is available at €70 per person. Tasting menu available for whole table only. To book, call 091 535947. More information can be found by visiting www.AniarRestaurant.ie.
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For more information contact:
Olivia Collins, Food PR 087 8173800 [email protected]
