Eileen Dunne and Stefano Crescenzi are two of the most gifted food entrepreneurs in Ireland, and the recession isn't dimming their ambition, for they have just opened a new L'Officina restaurant in the Arnott's Project shop now open in The Jervis Centre, Dublin.
Seating up to 100 people, the restaurant, designed by Gottstein architects, has a wine bar and a small retail area along the lines of its Kildare Village outlet.
Actually, the McKennas en famille ate at the Kildare Village outlet of L'Officina over easter, and found the entire experience to be nothing short of superb: great room, great staff, great cooking, and then a lovely array of foods to spend a whacking great amount of money on before we got out the door.
It was just great, quite the most delightful way to spend money, and contrary to the somewhat surreal experience of the rest of the village, L'Officina was real, rustic and well rooted. Smart people.
And speaking of smart people, Aran McMahon of RUA, a groundbreaking deli in Castlebar, has a funky, fun new website where you can see RUA in the virtual world: www.caferua.com.
This is a great shop, one of those pivotal addresses that acts as an aleph of our contemporary food culture in all its inspired brilliance. Don't miss RUA on Spencer Street next time you are in Castlebar.
