20/08/2010

With all the fantastic sea food available in the North West, it’s not surprising that one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the summer is the Seafood Festival to be held in the City this weekend, August 21st.

As part of Irish Walled Towns Weekend you can join local chefs from some of our top restaurants, including Trevor Hambley from The Beech Hill Country House Hotel, as they display their skills with seafood.

The celebration of local Atlantic Seafood sees a fabulous market with delicious delicacies of the deep on offer such as mussels, scallops, crab, chowder and much more, as well as demos from three top local culinary artist. The other chefs taking part along with Trevor Hambley are Ian Orr from Browne’s Restaurant and Paul Twell from The Magnet.

Trevor said: “I will be making a number of dishes, including spiced sour mackerel soup, which is a Thai dish, monkfish and chorizo skewers, and smoked salmon cornett with pea ice-cream, as well as two other dishes which I haven’t decided on yet.

“Fish is very popular here especially during the summer months, during the winter people tend to go for more hearty meals, but during the summer months I would double the fish intake.

“The idea of the Seafood Festival is to highlight what we do at our restaurants, the three chefs taking part all work in completely different environments – a restaurant with fine dining, a bar that would serve more pub grub and myself based at a country house hotel.

“All three of us really want to encourage people to experience different ways of cooking and to try something new. It’ll be really tasty, fresh, fun food.

“I’m really looking forward to the day, there will definitely be a bit of banter and a bit of craic between the chefs, and maybe we’ll even be trying to sabotage each other’s stalls,” joked Trevor.

Trevor, Ian and Paul are all involved in Derry’s newly formed Chef’s Circle. Along with five other chefs they meet once every two months to talk about the things that affect them in their work.

Trevor continued: “We have been discussing a Chef’s Circle for Derry since December last year and we held our first meeting in April.

“As well as myself, Ian and Paul we also have chefs from The Lime Tree in Limavady, Radisson in Limavady, The Everglades, North West Regional College and the Beech House in Buncrana.

“It’s a pretty informal gathering of chefs where we can discuss things, help each other with suppliers and staff, and in general it’s a really good sounding board for all of us and so far it’s been very successful.

“We usually meet once every two months but in the run up to the Seafood Festival we’ve met a bit more often.

“The Seafood Festival is a brilliant idea for Derry, and it’s a great chance for us chefs to show off our skills while giving people the opportunity to enjoy some fantastic food, and maybe try something new.”

The Seafood Festival will take place from 12noon to 4pm in Guildhall Square on Saturday August 21st. Further details about it and the Walled Towns Day events can be found on  and click on walled towns day.

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