The faces behind the food: 50 new Irish food heroes that are making waves

Joe McNamee compiles a list of those who have made Ireland their home and larder, forever changing the face of Irish food

The list includes charcutiers, smokers, bakers, farmers and growers and more.

This is a list of 50 New Irish Food Heroes, people in Irish food who were born elsewhere in the world but have made Ireland their home and their larder. What’s more, they have all delivered an important, sometimes even vital, contribution to Irish food culture and cuisine.

Even though several are probably long past ‘new’ status, having lived here for decades, I have borrowed the positive descriptor, ‘New Irish’, from the more general arena of public discourse. After many generations of near one-way traffic outwards, this term emerged as it gradually became apparent that the inward flow of immigration over the last two decades was not a momentary blip but a genuine indication that Ireland was finally arriving in a modern, interconnected, global world.