FOOD FILE:The first thing you'll hear on entering Toni Dowdall's Gourmet Gadgets shop in Greystones, Co Wicklow is the voiceover from a cookery show – she plays footage of Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, and Barefoot Contessa programmes on a TV screen on the wall.
It’s a clever idea; there’s something about watching all that lightening quick chopping and slicing that makes you want to upgrade your equipment immediately. And you won’t be short of inspiration here.
Dowdall, who describes herself as “an office manager who dreamt of owning a kitchen equipment shop”, fulfilled her dream when she opened the doors of her new business four months ago. The shelves in Gourmet Gadgets are lined with every conceivable piece of kitchen kit, and there are lots of pieces you won’t find anywhere else. The William Bounds pepper mills Dowdall is holding in the photograph (above) are works of art as well as working really effectively. They are individually hand painted, and the price range runs between €62 and a whopping €250.
At the other end of the price scale, the Kitchen Craft Natural Elements implements in acacia wood are far more glamorous than run-of-the- mill wooden spoons, citrus reamers, salad servers and tongs, and look far more expensive than their €6.80 price tags.
A De Buyer tarte tatin tin (€59.85) looks like a keeper, and Dowdall says her customers use it for much more than its intended purpose. “It’s great for starting something off on the hob and then finishing in the oven,” she says. Finger guards (€7) for Microplane graters, of which she has a comprehensive selection, will stop you shredding your digits, and the Kyocera ceramic blade tools (€34) will allow you to turn out very professional looking wafer-thin slices and julienne strips.
But the most popular item in the shop is also one of the least high-tech. The Garlic Twist (€17.20) is a neat device that takes the effort out of mincing garlic, “and it has been walking out of the shop. Almost everyone who buys one comes back for another, for a friend,” Dowdall says. Like many of the products she stocks, it comes from the US. “My sister-in-law brought me one home, and I tracked down the manufacturers and started importing them.”
Perhaps the best thing about this new shop is that the entire stock is available to buy online. Gourmet Gadgets, 2 Hillside Road, Greystones, Co Wicklow. See gourmetgadgets.ie or tel: 01-2870044
