Chef Neven Maguire from MacNean’s Restaurant in Blacklion, Co. Cavan, is an Irish food hero and great supporter of Irish produced foods. For the series of “Neven’s Irish Seafood Trails”, he travelled to North Clare in the summer of 2020 to highlight Irish food and drink, and visited chefs like Peter Jackson who at the time was the head chef at the Armada Hotel in Spanish Point, and Viv Kelly at Russell’s Food Shop in Doolin.
He also spent quite a bit of time at the Burren Smokehouse in Lisdoonvarna where, to his surprise, he discovered our new visitor experience called “Taste the Atlantic – Salmon Experience”. Owner Birgitta Hedin Curtin guided him through it and discussed wild and organic salmon. He was given the VIP treatment and was able to see the kilns and smoke box in the smoking area which normally is off limits for the public. In the family-owned pub next door, the Roadside Tavern, he tasted different kinds of our Burren Smoked Irish Organic Salmon. He got a chance to pair them with the Burren Brewery beers brewed by Birgitta’s husband Peter Curtin. Among them was the “Euphoria”, a hop-less fruity beer brewed with wild yeasts collected in the Burren and locally collected herbs.
