Bridgestone Guide Book 2008

100 Best Restaurants 2008

Can we recommend that any groups of people dining in The Strawberry Tree opt for the Feast Menu? This way, what happens is that you sit around the big table and the dishes arrive all at once – home-smoked beef; fabulous seasonal partridge; monkfish in a cream vegetable sauce; rare Wicklow beef; platters of superlative organic vegetables, the dishes roll out until the table is veritably laden with fabulous food.

And then you help yourself, and you help each other, and something interesting happens: you realise that what Evan Doyle and his crew have done is to connect you to something primal, the act of sharing that is such an integral part of a group of people eating together. Team work? Bonding? Huh, this is team work on a whole other level.

The Feast Menu at the Big Table is one of the most radical ideas Evan Doyle has had, but radical ideas come quickly to this brilliant organisation, largely because they are expert in tapping into our subconscious with what they offer. The Strawberry Tree gives us what we want, whether we are two, or twenty. Great staff, great place.

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