Niall McKenna

Prior to opening his first restaurant James St South, he worked with many of the first wave of Celebrity Chefs including Gary Rhodes, Marco Pierre White and in his first restaurant kitchen with Paul Rankin at Roscoff. Niall has since opened the doors to many other great restaurant’s in Belfast and has been honoured with winning many great awards of which the Tourism Hero for Northern Ireland and an honorary diploma with the Belfast Metropolitan as his career highlights as well of course as winning a place at the coveted kitchen brigade of BBC Great British Menu program.

In this class he taught me how to prepare a restaurant quality menu as well as trade secrets you can take back to your own kitchen.

Saturday kitchen with Niall Mckenna @jamesstsouth cookery school – @instagram stories #greatfoodeveryday https://t.co/cJ6E3ytLWN pic.twitter.com/pdlYr419Pw

— Love Belfast ❤️ (@love_belfast) August 12, 2017

This decadent 3 course meal began with a delicious Irish Wheaten Bread , Scallops and Seaweed Butter  ideal complement to any dish. For our main course Niall showed how to prepare pork chop with Kearney Blue Cheese Butter. And for dessert Honey Pannacotta with HoneyComb .

Our group was an intimate one. Eight students all anxious to learn.

We started by watching Niall make a honeycomb for our Honney Pannacotta desserts later. This was obviously a treat for us!

Next was Irish Wheaten Bread

All of the delegates followed by making their own bread which were taken home at the end of the day. These breads have all of the elements of a great dish and wonderful flavours.

Scallops and Seaweed Butter was another dish which proved to be a winner for me.

For Main: Pork Chop with Kearney Blue Cheese Butter.

This is a 3-4 hours day cooking, eating and drinking – my idea of perfection, and, we started at11.00am and did not finish until  2.30pm the course was so enjoyable that time seemed to nip along at an incredibly rapid rate

The general feel of the school is one of fun and enjoyment with a “no failure” approach underscored with a truly informative and educational backdrop delivered with such ease that, if you blink, you miss the little nuggets of information that a chef with such experience can reveal.

In summary should you want to send your other half on a cookery School or, better still, go yourself then the James st. South Cookery school has to be the one.

 Thanks  Niall, you made it so easy to have a go!