Something special is happening in Northern Ireland’s food story with gifted chefs creating beautiful food from a fantastic array of local produce.
The city of Derry-Londonderry has become something of a culinary capital with classy restaurants serving modern Irish cuisine and a thriving café and bar scene.
Surrounding the city is a rich pastoral landscape and waters with abundant seafood that give local chefs plenty to work with. To celebrate all of this, the city has launched a food guide that I feel sure will convince you to put Derry on your travel itinerary.
The LegenDerry Food Guide is a stylish coffee table publication featuring more than 50 restaurants, cafes, purveyors of fine food, and food producers.
Produced by Derry City Council, it is being made available in local hotel rooms but can also be downloaded online. (This is not a sponsored post; I’m just happy to spread the word.)
The council’s Tourism Development Officer, Mary Blake, said the guide was part of a wider food tourism program that included best practice models and partnership masterclasses to help raise the city’s culinary offering.
It’s an exciting year for Derry, which is the UK’s City of Culture for 2013. There are still numerous festivals and events to come this year, including Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, the world’s biggest festival of Irish culture anywhere in the world.
The festival will be held in Derry in August, the first time it has taken place north of the border since it was founded in 1951.
Download the LegenDerry Food Guide here.
Related post: 5 things to do in Derry
Photos courtesy of Tourism Ireland.
I love the idea of a City of Culture for a year. What a great tourism idea. 🙂
I will have to make my way there in September!
Definitely one to put on your itinerary, Alison.
I loved both Scotland and Ireland!! The highlands and the light in Scotland were spectacular and we have cousins still there – but also a great grandmother from Ireland (Galway). There was a lot of going back and forth between Ireland and Scotland on my mother’s side of the family, I’m sure this began during the Highland clearances. The Irish backed the Jacobite rebellion there. Amazing how both cultures suffered similarly.
As you mentioned on my blog, Wicklow is a favourite!! and similar to the highlands of Scotland. The Newgrange tomb in Meath is exactly like the Maes Howe tomb in the Orkneys.
I also enjoyed reading about the Irish forced to leave as convicts for Port Arthur. The oppression was brutal and so sad, but now part of Australia’s history and spirit.
PS and in County Clare we had a lamb stew simmered in Guinness to die for!!!