Hook, line and sinker

Limerick’s loss has been Carolina’s gain as Frank McMahon cooks up a seafood storm in the deep south. On the 4th of July, he tells John Riordan how historic Charleston cast its spell on him

WHEN Hank Holliday wanted his beloved Charleston to reassert its unique culinary identity, it was only natural that he would turn to a Limerick man.

After a decade spent honing his craft in New York and Los Angeles, serendipity brought chef Frank McMahon and his wife Gigi to the old colonial town on the South Carolina coast in 1994. Five years later he was running the kitchen at Elliot’s on the Square — that’s when Holliday decided to scout the competition, in search of the one final piece for the new seafood restaurant he had installed in a century-old disused warehouse.