Ciara's Country Flavours: Aimsir shines in first season

It must be one of the fastest wins in Michelin history. Ironically, given its name, Jordan Bailey and his wife Majken Bech-Bailey’s restaurant Aimsir hasn’t been open for the four seasons of the year, but they were the big success in London last week when they received two Michelin stars. The mecca of the restaurant world, Michelin is the accolade that guarantees packed seats for months, but honestly, that hasn’t been a problem for the couple. It’s been waiting lists and a full house since day one in May.

The Aimsir experience starts before you even enter the restaurant as it’s located on the Cliff at Lyons estate, a beautiful rural retreat outside Celbridge, Co Kildare.

The country’s capital may be a half-hour drive but this idyllic countryside experience makes you feel a million miles away from civilisation. It’s not a traditional hotel in the sense that it is made up of a pick-pocket of cottages that spread across the grounds surrounded by a lake, blossoming flowers and manicured gardens.

The right fit

“I knew as soon as I arrived here, it was something special,” says Jordan, the Cornwall-born chef who has a string of successful restaurants in London and Oslo under his belt, including the Michelin three-star restaurant Maaemo.

“Majken and I were on the lookout for something exciting. We wanted to open our own restaurant, but it was all about finding the right fit.”

Offers had come pouring in for Bailey’s expert hand, from as far as Singapore and Shanghai to closer locations in England and Denmark. But it was on a visit to the Cliff at Lyons at a time when he was scouting out opportunities that things clicked into place.

“I was working in Denmark at the time and he rang me at 2am, all excited saying, ‘This place is amazing, you’re going to love it’ I think he booked plane tickets for me that night,” Majken says.

“Immediately, the creativity started to flow,” says Jordan. “I could just see the opportunities right in front of me, bouncing with ideas of what we could do, how it could look. We have visited lots of beautiful places but here, it just felt like it fit.”

Amazing Irish produce

As a British-Danish couple who had never lived in Ireland, their knowledge of our Irish produce was limited. So looking at everything through fresh eyes, the couple hit the road in the summer of 2018 to immerse themselves in Irish produce.

“Everybody said we couldn’t have picked a better summer for it and as we made our way around the country visiting farmers and producers, we amassed a collection of produce to use on our menu.

“One of my favourite moments was when we visited Kelly Oysters in Galway, it was early in the morning – about 7am – and there we were with the morning sun shining down standing in the middle of the sea, with crabs crawling over us, eating oysters for breakfast, it was amazing,” says Majken.

Jordan adds that another great moment was visiting Martina Calvey on Achill Island.

“We were driving around and there were sheep everywhere on the island, and we asked, ‘Where is the farm?’ ‘This is the farm’ she replied laughing.

“The sheep were on the beach, on the road, in people’s back gardens, I’d never seen anything like it.”

A different way to dine

This exposure to the best of what Ireland has to offer has translated into a menu that is creative, adventurous, bold and daring. It’s 18 courses but before you back away, exhausted by just the thought of it all, take strength from the fact that some are just bite-sized portions – and anyway there were a lot of Irish producers that he was determined to pack in there.

The whole meal starts small and fast, with the first five courses comprising of a repertoire of very fancy finger food. It is the first course, using a single Ballymakenny potato that sets the meal off on the right start.

Maria Flynn’s heritage purple potatoes are now gracing the menus of five-star restaurants across the country but in this instance, the chef roasts a miniature potato whole in the oven before scooping out the middle and deep frying the skin to create a vessel. It is then filled with Drummond Heritage garlic from Peter and Marita Collier’s farm just up the road from Ballymakenny Farm in Co Louth. This gives the potato a smoky, camelised flavour before it is finished off and filled by Boyne Valley Bán cream cheese. This is a course to eat in one bite as the warm cheese bursts through the potato vessel to create a smoky, savoury explosion in your mouth.

It also comes served with a little humour of our Irish love of potatoes. Jordan says: “I very quickly established the Irish love of meat and two veg. So whenever you come up with a menu that challenges people’s expectations, it also comes complete with a bit of nervousness.

I spoke to a lot of Irish chefs but it was Damien Grey from Heron and Grey – who is doing something very different and unique himself – that said, ‘Go for it’. The Irish diner is really receptive to new experiences, so we serve this first with a bit of humour that ‘Here is your potato’, we’ve ticked that box so now we can move on to the rest of the menu,” he laughs.

Other delicacies

Other culinary highlights on the menu include a tiny tart of Killenure Dexture beef. The casing is made from its own tripe, but it’s unlike any tripe you’ve tasted before. Cooked for three hours until it’s tender, it’s then sliced paper thin before it is lined into moulds which is deep fried before the Dexter beef, which is aged for 75 days, is bound together with smoked eel and a little thyme.

And then sometimes simple is best with a Flaggy Shore oyster allowed to stand proudly in its own glory complimented by some Koji butter cooked with the juice of the oyster and finished with a little apple balsamic vinegar. Overall, dining at Aimsir will challenge your taste buds and reward you simultaneously along the way, a true food experience that is deserving of its early awards.

The culinary event is housed in the restaurant which blends into the whole experience at the Cliff at Lyons but still depicts some of the couple’s Scandinavian influences. Dark evening blues and a grey roof depict the weather that influences each producer that proudly sits on the menu of Aimsir.