Once voted ‘Best food festival’ by the acclaimed McKennas guides, the Connemara Mussel Festival 2017 will gather a host of culinary delights for young and old in the beautiful village of Tullycross.
The Connemara Mussel Festival has established itself as a must attend family, culinary event in the west of Ireland. Children, teenagers, amateurs and professional chefs will all be involved in providing fun for everyone while battling it out in a series of interactive demonstrations and culinary competitions.The ever popular educational, interactive cooking workshops for children will take place over the weekend on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th of April.
Under the experienced wing of GMIT lecturers Jacinta Dalton and Maria Conboy these workshops will provide an educational, interactive and nutritional seafood experience which will demonstrate how to make nourishing and tasty food. For the very first time the Mussel festival will also have a junior master chef competition taking place on Saturday April 29.
Junior master chef hopefuls of the future aged 12-15 will battle it out for best dish of the day, using local ingredients inspired by the Wild Atlantic Way.The invigorating, fun and entertaining amateur chef competition will take place on Saturday April 29 where a food fight will take place between three home cooks who will battle it out in a bid for the prestigious crown Connemara Mussel Festival Amateur Chef 2017.
The Connemara Mussel Festival will also feature its very own Bake off where home bakers will bring their produce such as brown bread, scones and tarts to be judged by our experts.Over the weekend some of the finest chefs in the country will showcase their culinary skills in a variety of demonstrations.
The Connemara Mussel Festival will feature a stellar line up of chefs including Joe Flaherty from John Keoghs Gastro Pub in Galway city, formerly of the Brasserie on the Corner, Jonathon Keane from The Lodge at Ashford Castle and Philippe Farineau from Ashford Castle. On Sunday April 29 JP McMahon will make his second visit to the Festival with his demonstration entitled “Ireland’s First Food – The Native Oyster”. The Galway-based chef, restaurateur and author, is Culinary Director of the award-winning EatGalway Restaurant Group and he runs the Aniar Boutique Cookery School.
He is committed to the educational and ethical aspects of food – to buying and supporting the best of local and free-range produce and engaging directly with small farmers. Contemporary Irish Cuisine will also take place with award winning chefs Enda McEvoy and Shane Sheedy who will demonstrate their techniques in contemporary cooking. Enda McEvoy is the chef of Michelin starred Restaurant Loam in Galway City and was voted Best Chef in Ireland in 2016 and Best Chef in Connacht in 2017.
Shane Sheedy is a Culinary Arts Technician at GMIT and is Regional Young Chef Ambassador for IGCAT (The Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism ), Barcelona. Shane also represented Galway in November 2016 in the European Region of Gastronomy Young of Chef of the Year Award. He has trained under Gordon Ramsey and Alain Ducasse in their 3 Michelin Star Restaurants in London and was a finalist in The European Young Chef of the Year Competition 2016.Along with premium Irish whiskey and wine tastings, mussels will be served in pubs, restaurants and on the street all over the weekend.
Whether you are travelling with babies, toddlers, teenagers, grandparents and all those in between, all members of the family are sure to experience an unforgettable and delicious weekend in the heart of Connemara.
For additional information on how to enter the competitions and to book online visit www.connemaramusselfestival.com
