Dublin’s first French restaurant, Jammet’s, opened in 1901 and closed in 1967. I never ate there, but my mother did. As a young teacher working in the capital just after the Second World War, she thought it was the height of glamour when invited to dine there by an engineer, to celebrate the passing his final exams. Only later did she discover that he had pawned his instruments in order to pay the bill.
The Jammet hotel and restaurant at No 27 Andrew Street in Dublin was established by brothers Michel and François Jammet, on the former site of the Burlington Restaurant and Oyster Saloons. The brothers grew up near Quillan in the French Pyrenees, trained as chefs in Perpignan and worked throughout France. According to Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire, an academic and food historian, the Jammet brothers advertised widely in newspapers, pointing out that theirs was the only French restaurant in Dublin.
“Their credentials as ‘master chefs’ were unquestioned, having worked at the highest level of haute cuisine in Le Boeuf à la Mode in Paris and in the Viceregal Court, Dublin. The brothers were soon accepted among their peers in the Irish catering community as leaders of the culinary arts in Ireland,” writes Mac Con Iomaire.
Michel first came here in 1887 as chef to Henry Roe, a distiller, at his house on Fitzwilliam Square. A French chef in a domestic house was considered the height of civilisation at a time when most private homes had female cooks.
He then moved to London to work for Lord Cadogan, and when Cadogan was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1895, Michel returned with him to Dublin to take up the position of head chef at the Viceregal Lodge. Guests included the then Prince and Princess of Wales, and Queen Victoria, who stayed there during her visit to Ireland in 1900.
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François, meanwhile, worked at high-end restaurants in Paris before joining his brother in Dublin to establish Jammet’s. In 1926, the restaurant moved to new premises on Nassau street (now the Porterhouse).
The main dining room, Mac Con Iomaire says, was described as “pure French second empire”, “with a lovely faded patina to the furniture, snow-white linen, well-cut crystal, monogrammed porcelain, gourmet-sized silver-plated cutlery, and gleaming decanters. It became the gathering place for the artists and literary figures of the day such as WB Yeats, Liam O’ Flaherty, Seán O’ Sullivan, Harry Kernoff and Walter Starkie”.
The earliest surviving menu from Jammet’s dates from 1949, and shows that the structure and dishes followed the Escoffier orthodoxy of haute cuisine.
“A 1961 menu shows a wide variety of seasonal game including pheasant, plover, widgeon and wild duck, which could be ordered roasted, à l’orange or à la presse,” writes Mac Con Iomaire. “It is interesting to note the French layout of the 1962 menu, serving the cheese before the sweet course, and the use of black truffles (perigourdine) and asparagus, both markers of haute cuisine.”
When Egon Ronay came to Dublin in 1963 he wrote of Jammet’s: “As if by magic the turn of the century has been fully preserved beyond the swing door . . . Space, grace, the charm of small red leather armchairs, fin-de-siècle murals and marble oyster counters exude a bygone age. Ritz and Escoffier would feel at home here.”
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“Ronay awarded Jammet’s restaurant two stars — indicating excellence of cooking,” writes Mac Con Iomaire.
“After the war, when Ardmore Studios in Co Wicklow was in its heyday, stars such as Orson Welles, James Cagney and Ingrid Bergman converged on Jammet’s. It was the place to be seen during the 1950s and early 1960s when the clientele included Prince Aly Khan, Rita Hayworth and Danny Kaye.”
According to Mac Con Iomaire, Jammet’s sent its chefs and senior front-of-house staff for some French polishing in Paris, at the Bristol hotel. Jimmy Beggan, manager of Jammet’s who trained at the Bristol, was described as an “unrepentant Francophile” who “judged all areas of the restaurant and wine business against those of France”.
Pierre Rolland, another French chef working in Ireland, also helped to give Dublin a reputation for haute cuisine.
He arrived in Ireland in 1949 and worked as chef de cuisine at the Russell hotel, which was awarded three stars in Ronay’s guide of 1963 and was acknowledged as one of the best restaurants in the world at that time. It remained open until 1974 with Michel’s son, Louis, having taken over from his father and uncle.
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Mac Con Iomaire has written that the period from 1947 to 1974 was a golden age for haute cuisine in Ireland. This must be seen as a result of the influx of French chefs, working at restaurants such as Jammet’s, the Russell hotel and Red Bank on D’Olier Street, “civilising” what had previously been seen as a local cuisine lacking in sophistication.
Almost half a century since Jammet’s served its last entrée, another French chef is making a mark in Ireland — incidentally also using wild Irish game and truffles. Philippe Farineau, however, is a stickler for seasonality, so he will not be serving asparagus on the menus at his new culinary base, the George V at Ashford Castle in Cong, Co Mayo, for at least a few months.
Farineau has been in Ireland since 1998, when he started at the K Club. Born in Brittany, he began his career at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris including the Bristol hotel. “My love of food started at the age of seven when I saw a programme about Paul Bocuse,” says Farineau. “He’s the master. I was very impressed and I never wanted to be anything else after that.”
“Almost the only things I bring from France are olive oil and a little foie gras that I serve with pigeon from Co Clare
The refurbishment of Ashford Castle by its new owners, the Red Carnation group, allowed Farineau, as executive head chef, to work from a clean slate. He describes his food as “French heart, Irish produce” and his kitchen team of 32 chefs includes eight from France. Farineau has elevated the food to such an extent that there are whisperings about a possible Michelin star later this year.
“I come with French ideas and a French vocabulary,” says Farineau. “I like to use French words on my menus, because in a culinary sense they are very specific. So, for instance, I will make a dish of pommes dauphine — a mixture of choux pastry with mashed potato — but an Irish chef making the same dish might call it something different. I include lots of description on the menu because when people understand a dish they enjoy it more.”
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Farineau’s menu descriptions are positively verbose compared with the current trend towards a terse listing of ingredients with no explanation of how they are treated in a dish.
I am curious as to whether Farineau thinks he would cook the same food that he presents in Cong if he were working in France.
“I love foraging, so whether I’m here or in France I’ll be foraging, but of course what I find will be different. Here we have wild garlic, particular types of mushrooms and flowers in salads. I love my flowers,” he says. “I like to use ingredients that people have in their own gardens, like chickweed, to get people thinking and talking. I don’t want to see the same ingredients on menus all the time, and I don’t want to see food that you can cook at home.”
One of the dishes on Farineau’s menu features gnocchi made with several varieties of locally harvested seaweed, and he makes a Japanese-inspired dashi broth with Atlantic kombu (kelp).
“If I was cooking in Brittany I would be using whatever local seaweeds were available,” says Farineau. “But if I was cooking somewhere in the middle of France then obviously I would use what was closer. A chef’s cooking must speak of where he is.
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“I am working with some wonderful producers and growers who have some really special produce I can introduce on to the menus; secret ingredients, if you like. There are forgotten vegetables that I want to bring back to menus. In France we used to eat insects 200 years ago — crickets, little worms, that sort of thing. They disappeared for years. Now they are fashionable again and you can find them in the supermarkets.”
Farineau is fulsome in his praise of ingredients available to him in the west, such as quail from Ballina, lamb from Achill Island, Hereford beef from Kilkenny, and seafood such as lobster, turbot and hake. “We have beautiful prawns as big as my thumb, too — the seafood is wonderful. There is rose veal, and local cheeses that just keep getting better and better. All the meat, fish and cheese on the menu is from Ireland; almost the only things I bring from France are olive oil and a little foie gras that I serve with pigeon from Co Clare. It is beautiful to see what the artisan producers are achieving,” he says.
“My menu is full of texture and colours. I want guests to open their minds and palates to these beautiful ingredients. As a chef, I speak to the eyes.”