Keep it local

EUROTOQUES, the European Association of Chefs, was founded in Brussels in 1987 as a guardian of European culinary heritage and as a lobby group to voice the concerns of Europe’s top chefs.

The founder, Pierre Romeyer, owner of the three-Michelin star La Maison de Bouche in Brussels, invited leading chefs across Europe to join him in his “quest to protect the quality, diversity and flavour of our foods, indigenous food methods and the traditional cuisines that had been established over hundreds of years”.

Among the illustrious chefs who joined Romeyer and founded Eurotoques branches were Paul Bocuse from France, Cas Spijkers from Holland and our own Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe House. Today Eurotoques has a membership of almost 4,000 chefs, including 200 in Ireland, and has a permanent European office in Brussels from which it coordinates its lobbying campaigns. At the third Eurotoques National Food Forum & Fair at the Brooklodge Hotel, Co Wicklow, recently, the topic for discussion was “The Future of our Food”.