Paradiso on Lancaster Quay has been Cork's foremost vegetarian restaurant since 1993 under chef-owner Denis Cotter. The seasonal vegetable tasting menu draws on Penelope Gaffney's organic farm in East Cork.

Denis Cotter opened Cafe Paradiso on Lancaster Quay in 1993, two years after Charlie Trotter declared his vegetable-tasting menu in Chicago; collaboration with Ultan Walsh's Gortnanain Farm since 1996 made Paradiso one of Europe's earliest single-farm vegetarian restaurants. Cotter's three cookbooks, Cafe Paradiso Cookbook (1999), Paradiso Seasons (2003) and Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me (2007), are the defining Irish vegetarian texts. Paradiso has held a Michelin Bib Gourmand and Bridgestone Top 100 listing for over two decades and was named the best vegetarian restaurant in Ireland by McKenna's Guides repeatedly through the 2010s and 2020s.

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Make it at home

Serves 41 hr 30 minIntermediate

Ingredients

  • 2 small kabocha or red kuri squash, halved and seeded
  • 200g pearl barley
  • 1 leek, finely sliced
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 150g Gortnamona or Cashel Blue cheese, crumbled
  • 60g toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
  • 2 tbsp pumpkin seed oil
  • 1 small bunch sage, leaves picked
  • 50g unsalted butter
  • 300ml vegetable stock
  • 1 tbsp white miso
  • Lemon zest of 1 lemon
  • Sea salt, black pepper
  • Olive oil

Method

  1. Heat oven to 200C. Rub squash halves with olive oil, salt, pepper, and place cut-side down on a tray.
  2. Roast 35 minutes until the flesh yields to a knife but holds its shape.
  3. Meanwhile, cook pearl barley in stock with the leek and garlic, simmering 30 to 35 minutes until tender but with bite.
  4. Stir miso into the warm barley. Fold in half the blue cheese, half the hazelnuts, and the lemon zest.
  5. Flip the roasted squash halves cut-side up. Scoop a generous mound of the barley into each cavity.
  6. Top with the remaining blue cheese, return to the oven for 8 minutes until cheese softens.
  7. Brown the butter in a small pan with the sage leaves until the butter smells nutty and the sage crisps, 2 minutes.
  8. Spoon sage butter over each squash. Finish with the remaining hazelnuts and a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil.

Editor tip. Kabocha holds its shape better than butternut and is closer to what Paradiso uses; if you must substitute, choose a dense-fleshed winter variety, not butternut.