DINE OUT DAFFODIL MULLIGAN LONDON • DAFFODILMULLIGAN.COM


THE LATEST OPENING FROM CHEF RICHARD CORRIGAN IS ALL ABOUT HEARTY IRISH PRODUCE, AND HOSPITALITY TO MATCH


It’s 7pm on a Friday and Richard Corrigan is standing in the middle of his new restaurant, directing staff like Napoleon at Austerlitz. The finest Irish chef of his generation bestrides the dining room at Daffodil Mulligan like a colossus. Enormous arms swing out in welcome, embrace a departing old friend, catch the attention of a waiter. He is a great, avuncular presence and has created an equally genial Irish restaurant. Even in opening week, it’s rammed. We arrive a little early, our coats are whisked


away and we’re led to the downstairs bar, where, despite the hour, a party that wouldn’t shame Jim Morrison is in full swing. I manage to put away a Gibney’s Irish Stout — yes, even the drinks are Irish — before the waiter scoops us up again. The dining room upstairs is all glass walls, wicker furniture and dark-hued wood. There’s an open kitchen with a charcoal grill on one side, a 10-seat oyster bar beside it and two lines of tables behind.


122 The menu proclaims its allegiances pretty


boldly from the get-go. It’s all Irish produce, much of it sourced from Corrigan’s own County Cavan estate, cooked heartily with an emphasis on crowd-pleasing, punchy flavours. The three pages of wines, meanwhile, range in price per bottle from £23 (Agricola Castellana’s Casa Maria Verdejo) to £198 (Monte Dall’Ora Stropa Amarone della valpolicella). We settle for a light, pithy £28 Château Clément Termes’ Les Petits Clément merlot duras. The first dish out is whipped cod roe, which


is smooth, rich and smoky, accompanied by melba toast. Next up is soused herring; the silver darlings are bright, chunkily cut and served with potato salad, dill and little crouton meteors. We then dive into the meaty depths with crubeens — boiled pig trotter meat, deep- fried and shaped like hockey pucks, served with a pot of mustard on the side. Hearty and heavy (even a small pond of Colman’s wouldn’t have been sufficient to cut through the excess


NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.CO.UK/FOOD-TRAVEL


oil), they would’ve benefited from a dab with some kitchen roll before they arrived. For our mains, my friend orders oven-


baked sole. A thick wedge of glistening white fish arrives dotted with ceps, hazelnuts and Jerusalem artichokes. He eats it with indecent speed. I order my own main purely because it sounds completely bonkers and wholly un-Irish: sugar pit pork with pineapple, lychee and mint. I enjoy it very much, the hunk of sweet cured meat finding a happy partner with the spiky, roasted fruit. It’s no surprise Mr Corrigan is a serial winner of BBC TV show Great British Menu. Daffodil Mulligan doesn’t expand the


culinary universe or push the boundaries of food. But then it isn’t trying to do that. Like the song from which it takes its name, it’s fun, heartfelt and doesn’t take itself too seriously. A rare hat-trick in London. Three- course dinner for two, with wine, around £100. Samuel Muston


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132