Master chefs: The big names at this year’s Litfest

This weekend all eyes are on the Ballymaloe Litfest of Food & Wine. Joe McNamee meets the chefs – and discovers their favourite meals

There is no doubting the ambition displayed when Darina Allen and her brother, Rory O’Connell, launched the first Litfest in 2013 but as The Kerrygold Ballymaloe Litfest of Food & Wine 2016 takes place this weekend, it is impossible to have foreseen it becoming, not just the most important such event in Ireland, but already an essential part of the global culinary calendar.

But the very best — in any field — recognise that to stand still is to stagnate, that failure to evolve eventually leads to extinction.