Head Chef Chris McGowan and his wife Davina moved home to Northern Ireland after two decades working in London, where McGowan cooked alongside Richard Corrigan at Mayfair. Family brought them back to their roots, and they bought the space on the Main Street of Moira in County Armagh that houses Wine & Brine last summer. After a refurbishment process to the unexpectedly large building which, despite its petite exterior, includes a long dining room and a couple of function rooms for hire upstairs, they opened the doors of Wine & Brine in late 2015.
Tourism Northern Ireland announced earlier this month that 2016 was to be their Year of Food & Drink, with an aim of promoting the produce of the six counties and developing the existing links between farmers, artisanal producers and chefs. As a member of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild, I was invited up as a guest for a whistle-stop 24-hour tour of Northern Ireland’s food landscape alongside my fellow Guild members.
At Wine & Brine, I was able to take a culinary tour in three courses. I learned about the story behind the Lord Lurgan Soup, which I’m told first appeared on a menu in 1852 in honour of the charitable Lord Lurgan, who helped feed the poor in this area during the Famine with bowls of broth and rice.
At Wine & Brine, it’s a delicious, dark, chicken bone broth with chunks of poached chicken, spring onions and basmati, all laced with Cork-based Green Saffron Spices. The dish makes me think of kedgeree, a flavoursome reminder of the colonial ties between the east and west, and it gives me an insight into a slice of Northern Irish history.
A pheasant breast is poached in butter, and smeared in a spicy mustard before topped with a bacon crumb, served alongside sweetly roasted salsify and parsnips. I come across a little shot in it, which means that it is a wild bird rather than a farmed one. I never thought I would feel reassured by finding a piece of a bullet in my food, but there you have it.
We learn from McGowan that this bird came from one of the shoots at Baronscourt Estate in Co Tyrone, revered for its commercial shoots of wild game. The breast is upstaged by a confit of shredded pheasant leg; the texture is more enjoyable and the flavour more powerful.
My dessert steals the show. It’s a yoghurt from Clandeboye Estate in Co Down, topped with a tea-infused jelly using Thompson’s Tea, a Belfast-based family business that have been trading in tea for over a hundred years. Segments of blood oranges and a light sprinkle of crunchy granola seal the deal. Bottles of hand-crafted small-batch Kilmegan Cider, brewed in Co Down, are shared with us over dinner by cider brewer Andrew Boyd.
It makes sense that we've been brought out to Wine & Brine on our quick trip; I get a flavour of what's happening in the North by making my way through the menu. These aren't ingredients I've seen in the South. Of course, everyone is trying to keep their ingredients as local as possible, but as one of my favourite food writers, and fellow Guild member, Kristin Jensen (edible-ireland.com) often says all Irish food is local. It will be interesting to see what kind of impact the Year of Food & Drink 2016 has on the awareness and profile of Northern produce in the South.
Moira is less than a half-hour drive from Belfast city centre, and you can get a train out from the city, too. Though we were guests of Tourism Northern Ireland, the set menu of three courses we enjoyed was priced at £35 per person, with tea and coffee included.
