‘Bia’ means food in Irish, but there’s more than a glib pun behind Brian Donnelly and Jenny Holland’s gutsy ramen joint, Bia Rebel. Their brand of rebellion aims to break down Belfast’s rather binary restaurant codes – there seems to be two choices, formal or junk – treat producers fairly and deliver optimal flavour at a price accessible to all.
Chef Donnelly was born in Dungannon in 1974, growing up in Tyrone’s “murder triangle” during the “hairy times” of the Troubles and started cooking in Ballymaloe House in Co Cork. After a stint in England in various big-name kitchens, including Gordon Ramsay’s Aubergine and Michel Roux Jr’s Le Gavroche, he returned to Ireland as head chef at Thornton’s in Dublin when the restaurant held two Michelin stars.
Today, the stress of high-end kitchens is a distant memory as he applies his classical training to ramen and what he calls “the bowl of soup you imagine your grandmother used to make you.”
His business partner Holland is an Italian New Yorker born in Dublin, with a background in journalism with the New York Times and speechwriting for the New York fire department. Like Donnelly, she soundly rejects any notion of cultural appropriation when it comes to Bia Rebel’s “authentic Irish ramen”. “We’re not trying to be Japanese,” she says. “We’re an Irish restaurant. It just so happens this wonderful, perfect dish we’re making is considered Japanese. Provided you adhere to basic building blocks you can make it what you want.”
Those solid building blocks are at once what makes Donnelly’s “soup” so special, and why he feels he has at last found a channel for his vision. He’s sees an affinity between traditional Japanese and Irish ingredients – seaweed, fish, pork, mushrooms – and felt inspired by the challenge of creating one perfect bowl of flavour and quality. He goes directly to the farm for as much produce as possible. The chashu pork is made with heritage-breed pigs from Kenny Gracey, and Andrew Gilbert’s hens lay the eggs for the exquisite smoked “606 tea egg”. All the ramen noodles are made by hand and one of two broths forms the base of each Bia Rebel bowl, either their vegan miso or double broth, made with chicken wings – instead of more traditional fatty pork – and blended with dashi. “It’s better for western digestion, I find,” says Donnelly. “It’s a lot lighter and gives a more layered experience.”
Donnelly likes layers. The fiery Celtic ramen is topped with a fermented broad-bean paste. The ground pork in the tangy, smoky Rebel ramen has smoked paprika toasted into it and is then cooked in soy, fried shrimp, chilli oil and a little mirin. “The whole point of ramen is that you are dealing with huge volumes of umami yet trying to make it sophisticated,” he says. “You are trying to deliver this ultimate savoury bomb in a very delicate but easy-to-eat way. Our Belfast ramen bowl has 26 ingredients, takes 32 hours to cook, two minutes to serve in a bowl to our customers and costs £8. Once they’ve tried it, they always come back.”
The city has received recognition recently for high-end dining in restaurants such as OX and Eipic, but Donnelly and Holland think it could offer more to a younger crowd who can’t afford to “drop £200” on a meal.
“People just aren’t used to good quality takeaway and they don’t really know about ramen … yet,” says Holland. “We’re mostly a takeaway, but we do have 12 seats. People are encouraged to slurp, to drink from the ramen bowls, and once they relax they love it. With all the splashing, we’re having to clean the front window several times a day.”
