Did your parents tell you to never play with your food?
We suspect that Jette Virdi’s didn’t.
On our mission to discover new tastes we’ve teamed up with Jameson, the Irish Whiskey exemplars, to showcase three people who are taking the conventional and mixing it up into something fresh and unique.
For our second interview, we chat to Southampton-born art director and food stylist Jette Virdi. As we talk she’s putting the finishing touches on some onigiri susho and coconut macaroons. Her creations look more like tiny works of architecture than the delectable nibbles they are.
Jameson, Ginger & Lime is proof that three is the magic number, and Virdi is showing that by following the same rule of three, she too can create something truly magical.
By combining food, design and community involvement she has carved out a unique path of creativity which has to be seen to be believed.
Feast for the eyes and palette
“I come from a design background,” she explains. “So I’m much more visual that I am with weighing, measuring, working to precise recipes”.
By not caring too much about convention, Jette has a made a profound impact on her adopted city in the year or so since arriving from Mexico (where she renovated and ran a once-abandoned hotel).
All of her projects come from the same place as Jameson Ginger & Lime, an urge to create new, open social possibilities and build a community of (adventurous people) dying for new experiences.
One of those projects is Long Table Suppers, which connects people over one of those universal human needs: stuffing our faces with unbelievably delicious food.”
Supper clubs are sort of the AirBnB of dining”, Virdi says. Combining her formidable culinary skills with a panache for dressing up out-of-the-ordinary venues, these evenings are a loud, lively alternative to the formalities of restaurant dining.
Long Table is not just a showcase of gourmet pyrotechnics, however. “I don’t want people to pay money for the supper clubs to fill my pockets,” she says.
The proceeds of each meal go towards fine causes, like Men’s Sheds and Marriage Equality. After the success of Dublin editions of the club, it is preparing to go on tour. Next up: Dingle, Amsterdam and London
The Creatives
After the dishes are done and the banquet tables folded up, Virdi finds time to work on The Creatives, an open-ended organisation based around people from a plethora of different backgrounds pooling their expertise (and upper-body strength) to build new projects in their communities.
There’s no such thing as a typical member: “one of the guys – I call him the man-help – he’s a cancer researcher. He’s in the labcoat all day, and then comes around with his tools and his ladders after work and asks ‘what can I do right now?’. Being involved has opened him up to learning photography from another one of the crew.”
The Creatives is all about tracing those invisible connections, and having the trust in your instincts to knot them together. “What I’ll always tell people who want to be involved is: take a chance, take a gamble.”
So, the Jameson Ginger & Lime concept of doing it your own way, does it always pay off?
She doesn’t bat an eyelid: “Yes!”
This summer Jameson want to give you the chance to do it your way and discover something fresh and exciting.
To enter the competition and be in a chance of winning a Jameson experience for you and two friends just visit http://www.jamesoncultfilmclub.ie/jameson-ginger-and-lime
*Competition closes May 30th. T&Cs apply. The competition is valid for over 18s only.
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