There was a joyful gathering of more than 100 chefs and producers at Airfield Estate on Monday for the 2024 Euro-Toques Food Awards. Inspired by Euro-Toques Ireland founder Myrtle Allen and established in 1996, these prestigious awards recognise and celebrate the finest food produced in Ireland.
Chef members of Euro-Toques Ireland nominate producers, whose food they know because they use it in their own restaurants. At the event, there’s a real sense of connection between the people who grow, farm, fish and make these foods with the chefs who put them on their menus and on people’s plates. It’s an important acknowledgement of the importance of small producers. I was proud to be there as MC at the event for the third time, working with the Euro-Toques Food Council, particularly Head of Community Manuela Spinelli, Chair Conor Halpenny (see pic at the end!) and Kim Leonard.
While there is only one winner in each category, the other nominees are all examples of innovation, excellence and passion and well worth seeking out. We certainly feasted on the best of Irish food afterwards.
WATER: Rossmore Oysters Prized for their flavour, native Irish oysters are an exquisite treat and one that has been enjoyed by the inhabitants of this island since prehistoric times. But we nearly lost them. Due to overfishing, pollution and disease, native oysters almost disappeared but Rossmore Oysters in East Cork is helping to turn that tide.
David Hugh-Jones set up the oyster farm at Rossmore in Cork Harbour in 1969 and established a native breeding programme there. The farm is now run by his sons, Rupert and Tristan who have been working to restore the oyster beds, developing a thriving ecosystem and healthy native stock. Oyster farming has brought many environmental benefits to the area. These bivalves act as filters, improve water quality and positively impact the marine ecosystem. Farming the sea in this regenerative way is a practice that is critical to marine life and to the protection of our shores.
The native Irish oysters grow slowly and – unlike the always-available rock oysters – are only edible when there’s an R in the month: it means that we appreciate them all the more when they’re in season, especially when we know that they’ve returned from the brink of extinction to our plates.
LAND – The Apple Farm
Ireland can produce great apples: the challenge is to find them but, at The Apple Farm in Co Tipperary, you’re spoilt for choice. Depending on when you visit, varieties like Tipperary Pippin, Elstar, Karmine, Bramley’s Seedling and Discovery are just a few of the options available. These are apples of character, apples of flavour, a far cry from the one-dimensional imported simulacrums that you find in supermarkets.
This family business was founded by Willem and Ali Traas who moved from the Netherlands in the late 1960s. The farm is now under the careful stewardship of their son, Con, who lecturers in the University of Limerick on horticulture and sustainable agriculture. Trass grows a variety of fruit on the 68-acre farm, but the veritable core of his business is the apple: 60 varieties are grown over 40 acres of land, with 40,000 trees producing more than four million apples per year. Many of the apples are sold direct from the successful on-site farm shop; they are also made into juice, cider, crisps, vinegar, jams and jellies.
The farm is run with a strong environmental commitment. There is a large wildflower plot which encourages and protects the pollinators that are essential for fruit production. Natural predators are used to control pests and diseases. The apple trees themselves absorb carbon, release oxygen and produce a delicious crop. Working in harmony with nature: it makes for the best Irish-grown apples.
FARM: McGeough’s Butchers
Celebrating fifty-three years and three generations in the business, the family behind McGeough’s Butchers in Oughterard, Co Galway has long understood the importance of combining tradition with modern innovation. Renowned for the high quality of their fresh meats since 1971, they have made a definitive mark in the industry with their award-winning Connemara charcuterie.
For McGeough’s Butchers, founder Eamonn McGeough, his son James and grandson Justin have always sourced locally, while looking outwards for inspiration. James spent six years training as a Master Butcher in Germany – the first Irish butcher to do so – before coming home to Connemara in 1992. Inspired by the German-Swiss products that he had encountered during his time abroad, McGeough developed a range of specialty pork, lamb and beef products. The air dried and lightly smoked lamb is cured for up to six months, creating a unique product with a deeply savoury, almost gamey flavour, a real favourite with chefs who seek it out.
With the next generation now on board, the future is looking bright for this West of Ireland butchers.
DAIRY: Coolattin Cheddar
“Pasture to cheddar the same day” is the claim on the Coolattin Cheddar website and it’s something that Tom Burgess has been focusing on since he started making cheese more than twenty years ago. He takes the first milkings from his pasture-fed cows in West Wicklow, pumps it straight into the cheese vat and embarks on the painstaking process of cheddar-making. By the end of the day, that warm raw milk has been transformed into solid, albeit immature, cheese, pressed into moulds and ready for the maturing room.
Burgess doesn’t delay with the milk but he does take his time with this handmade cheese, which is made only in the summer months and aged for at least 12 months. For both Coolattin Cheddar and its cloth-bound stablemate, Mount Leinster, which was named Best Cheddar Cheese in the World at the 2023 World Cheese Awards, the end results are always subtly different. This is an Irish cheddar-style unpasturised milk farmhouse cheese that holds the landscape in its flavour.
ARTISAN PRODUCE: BKultured
Niamh Hegarty grew up on her family’s tillage farm in East Cork, studying commerce and Chinese and completing a Masters’ in Global Business in UCC before embarking on the 12-week certificate course at Ballymaloe Cookery School. Intrigued by the fermented foods that she encountered there, she started making her own water kefir. Initially, Hegarty sold it as a fizzy drink alternative from her food truck and in picnic boxes before deciding to scale up production and launching BKultured in 2022.
Water kefir is a probiotic sparkling beverage, fermented using water kefir grains. It naturally contains live bacteria that feeds the gut microbiota and can help to improve immunity and digestive issues. Hegarty has an infectious passion for fermentation, creating these small-batch drinks using her own kefir culture and well water from the family farm. From packaging to ingredients, she works to minimise environmental impact, sourcing locally if possible, supporting regenerative agriculture practices, and minimising waste during production. The end result is a delicately tart and refreshing drink, a delicious and healthy option.
CRAFT: Blackwater Distillery
Founded in 2014, Blackwater Distillery is a micro distillery based in the village of Ballyduff Upper in West Waterford where a small team produces a range of spirits including gin, vodka, poitín, single malt and pot still Irish whisky. That’s whisky without an e: founder, author and distiller Peter Mulryan is passionately determined to reclaim the heritage of Irish whisky, remaking whiskies lost to time and redefining an entire category.
In 2022, the first whisky release from Blackwater Distillery was the Dirtgrain Irish Whisky Manifesto, a four bottle box set which was a statement of intent and a demonstration of how grain, rather than cask, can shape the flavour of the spirit. Mulryan is determined to dig into the rich history of Irish whisky, using old recipes and history to inform current production. Looking into the past makes for a more interesting future and creates an atmosphere for intriguing innovation at Blackwater Distillery.
2024 Euro-Toques Food Award winners – Coolattin, McGeough, Apple Farm, BKultured, Rossmore Oysters, Blackwater Distillery. Photo by Ruth Calder-Potts
EURO–TOQUES FOOD AWARDS NOMINEES AND WINNERS 2024
Category Water – The Island Nation Award to represent produce from our seas, lakes, and rivers, with a focus on sustainable sea and river fish; shellfish; salts; seaweeds; sea vegetables.
Achill Oysters – Hugh O’Malley
Cromane Bay Shellfish – Patrick & Joseph O’Sullivan. Jennifer Boyle
Harty Oysters – Joe, Ray, & Shay Harty Winner: Rossmore Oysters – Rupert Hugh-Jones
Category Land – To honour our heritage – the forests, nature, the wild and above all, our soil with a focus on the growing of varietal herbs, edible flowers, vegetables, fruits, and grains in a sustainable way; caring for bees to produce honey; foraging for mushrooms, edible fruit, herbs, and vegetables; culling wild game sustainably.
Winner: The Apple Farm – Con Traas
Broighter Gold Rapeseed Oil – Richard & Leona Kane
Lisheen Greens – Bradley Putze
Moy Hill Farm – Fergal & Sally Smith
Category Farm – To honour the best and more sustainable way to rear animals with a focus on rare breed and native animal production; small farmers; sustainable production of meat, poultry, eggs, and game.
Broughgammon Farm – Charlie & Becky Cole
Winner: McGeough’s Butchers – Justin McGeough
On the Wild Side – Olivier Beaujouan
The Wooded Pig – Eoin Bird
Category Dairy – To honour Ireland’s rich and flavoursome dairy bounty with a focus on a sustainable approach to the production of milk, butter, cream, yoghurt, cheese, and ice cream.
Winner: Coolattin Cheddar – Tom Burgess
Leitrim Hill Creamery – Gypsy Gifford & Lisa Gifford
The Lost Valley Dairy – Mike Parle, Darcie Mayland
Mike’s Fancy Cheese – Mike Thomson
Category Artisan Produce – To honour a product which requires a traditional and handmade process, with a focus on the production of a product like oils, vinegars, flours, beer, cider, juices, spirits, jams, chutneys, pickles, smoked meat, and fish.
Winner: BKultured – Niamh Hegarty
King of Kefir – Gerry Scullion & Keith O’Reilly
Kombucha Na Dálaigh – Marianne O’Donnell
Category Traditional Craft/Skill – To honour the people behind the product who protect and preserve our culinary skills, technique and craft, while inspiring the future, with a focus on a person (or people) who has an unique skill that needs to be championed and/or protected.
Winner: Blackwater Distillery – Peter Mulryan & Caroline Senior Boann Distillery – Patrick & Marie Cooney
Killowen Distillery – Brendan Carty
Sliabh Liag Distillers – James & Moira Doherty
Food writer, broadcaster and author Caroline Hennessy has been focused on food and writing since editing Ireland’s first food website for RTÉ in 2000. Chair of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild, she established the award-winning Bibliocook: All About Food in 2005, is the author of two books about beer and food and has a column in the Irish Examiner in which she writes about small food producers and the ways in which they develop and maintain a sustainable local food system.
There was a joyful gathering of more than 100 chefs and producers at Airfield Estate on Monday for the 2024 Euro-Toques Food Awards. Inspired by Euro-Toques Ireland founder Myrtle Allen and established in 1996, these prestigious awards recognise and celebrate the finest food produced in Ireland.
