Food

US MasterChef winner cooking at West Cork food festival

Programme of events includes 255 events taking place in 41 towns, and on eight islands

A street feast on Clonakilty’s Main Street. Photograph: Dermot Sullivan/clonakity.ie

Marie Claire Digby
Fri Sep 7 2018 - 06:00

A group of six chefs from the US, including 2016 MasterChef winner, Shaun O’Neale, will arrive in Ireland next week to take part in the Taste of West Cork food festival.

The festival, which launches today (Friday, September 7th) and runs until September 16th, is one of the country’s biggest, with 255 events taking place in 41 towns – and on eight islands. There are 34 guest chefs and 23 guest speakers, including filmmaker David Puttnam, taking part in the 10-day programme.

As well as doing guest chef appearances at restaurants in the region, the visiting US chefs will come together to demonstrate a dish particular to their region at A Taste of the New World, in the Celtic Ross Hotel in Roscarbery on Thursday, September 13th.

US MasterChef 2016 winner Shaun O’Neale will be among six chefs visitng from the US to take part in the festival.

New events on the programme this year include a lobster garden party tonight (Friday, September 7th) with 2014 MasterChef Ireland winner Diana Dodog cooking at the Lifeboat Inn in Courtmacsherry, where she joins head chef Martin Buckley, formerly of Cliff Townhouse, Dublin and Le Gavroche in London. Lobster landed at the pier 500 yards from the gastropub, as well as lobster bisque, and Irish prawns, will feature on the menu for this event.

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Enda McEvoy of the Michelin-starred Loam in Galway takes over the reins at Robbie Krawczyk’s Restaurant Chestnut in Ballydehob (Sunday, September 13th), cooking a west of Ireland tasting menu.

Flora, fauna and food is the theme for Eccles Hotel, Glengarriff chef Eddie Atwell’s event at Bumblebee Farm, which will include a tour of the flower farm, cocktails and a tasting menu (Thursday, September 13th ).

Chef Danni Barry will be cooking at Glebe Café, Glebe Gardens’ new venture in Skibbereen.

Danni Barry continues the tradition of women chefs heading the kitchen at Glebe Gardens’s new venture in Skibbereen, the Glebe Café, when she hosts a dinner on Saturday, September 15th.

The island events take place on Cape Clear, Sherkin, Heir, Long, Fastnet, Dursey, Bere and Garnish islands. They include a barbecue in aid of the RNLI Baltimore station, on Sherkin on Saturday, September 8th, with Michelin-starred Derry Clarke on the grills.

Chef Derry Clarke will host a barbecue on Sherkin island in aid of the RNLI Baltimore station

The US chefs will cook at restaurants throughout the region during their week-long visit. O'Neale, who is a professional DJ as well as a chef, and has written a cookbook, My Modern American Table, will cook at Church restaurant in Skibbereen on September 13th and at Schull Harbour Hotel on September 14th.

Anthony Tarro, joint owner of the Siena restaurant group in Providence, cooks at Hayes’s bar in Glandore on September 12th. Matt Varga, executive chef at Grace’s restaurant, also in Providence, cooks at Glebe Gardens, Baltimore on the same night.

Ballincollig-born Brian Houlihan, who owns several restaurants in Massachusetts, cooks at Bia at the Bantry Bay Hotel today, and at Riverside Café in Skibbereen on Sunday, September 9th.

David Levi, chef patron at Vinland and Trattoria Fanny’s in Portland, Maine, will man the stoves at Inish Beg House on September 12th, and Tom Anacone of Craig’s Cafe in Quincy, Massachusetts takes over Mary Ann’s in Castletownshend on September 14th.

The full programme of events can be seen at atasteofwestcork.com.

GraceMary Ann