The story so far

Award-winning Kilkeel chef, Shaun Hanna, certainly hasn’t stood still since he launched his career almost 20 years ago, but these days, he’s sticking closer to home with an exciting restaurant and deli project at Banbridge.

Shaun Hanna, head chef and co-proprietor of The Linen Hill Kitchen and Deli in Banbridge and the current IFEX NI Chef of the Year, has been around kitchens and cooking from a young age.

Originally from Kilkeel, Shaun (37), took his first proper job as chef de partie at the Slieve Donard Resort and Spa when he was 19, signalling the launch of a remarkably varied career that’s seen him don his whites in kitchens all over the British Isles – and at sea!

During his first stint at the Slieve Donard in the 90s, Shaun progressed to the post of sous chef. At that time, he regularly travelled to take part in events such as IFEX and Catex and at 21, he visited Hotelympia in London and came away with a gold medal – his first major accolade in the profession.

“That pushed me to really get moving in my career and I went to work for the former Stakis chain at St. Anne’s Manor in Berkshire,” Shaun told LCN recently. “That was Stakis’ number one hotel in that country at the time.

“This is where I began my training for real,” he recalled. “It was as if everything had just moved to a different level for me. In Northern Ireland at that time, a main course might have cost around £10 or £11, but over there, it was £25 or £30 and a la carte would have been around £100 a head. The whole area was very corporate, it was just the culture and we were operating at a very high level.”

During his time at St. Anne’s, Shaun worked in the kitchen with chef Malcolm Baggott, who went on to become head of culinary operations for the UK and Ireland with Hilton Worldwide, who bought the Stakis Group in 2000.

By this stage, the Celtic Tiger was booming but Shaun’s hopes of an exciting new position in the States were scuppered when the 9/11 terror attacks took place. The contacts for that job had been given to him by pal, Dave Fitzgibbons who is now executive head chef at the Cavan Crystal Hotel. Dave had worked at Roscoff’s and Deane’s and at the end of 2001, he was working in the Landmark Hotel, Carrick-on-Shannon and it was here that Shaun found employment as head chef in one of its two restaurants.

“It was a great, busy time, the economy was booming and people were eating out on every night of the week,” recalled Shaun. “I was at The Landmark for two-and-a-half years before transferring to The Oarsman, a bar and restaurant in Carrick-on-Shannon that had only just opened and was looking for a young and energetic chef.

The Oarsman is known as one of Ireland’s original gastro-pubs and during Shaun’s tenure at the venue it moved from offering just bar lunches to a full restaurant offering. It was named Georgina Campbell pub of the year and has enjoyed a continuous presence in Bridgestone’s McKenna Guide.

He went on to work in consultancy for a time before a conversation with the Slieve Donard’s erstwhile GM, John Toner brought him north again to work as executive sous chef under Vincent Duffy at the Slieve Donard. While he was there, he competed in the second series of BBC Masterchef Professionals in 2009, reaching the quarter-finals.

A period at sea followed when he signed up with the yachts of the Seabourn cruise line under executive consulting chef, Charlie Palmer.  He spent one year on the liners as chef de partie  – a step down which Shaun says he was happy to take in order to experience this unusual, high end environment.

Back on dry land, Shaun relocated to Liverpool to live with his now fiancé Michelle, ad spent the next 18 months working at Panoramic 34 under chef director Chris Marshall, before returning to Ireland in 2010 where he worked again for a time at The Oarsman before collaborating with JRS Catering and its directors, John Robinson and Sharon Wright to plan and open the restaurant and coffee shop facilities at Belfast’s new Mac theatre in 2012.

These days, Shaun is kept busy with the The Linen Hill Kitchen and Deli at The Outlet in Banbridge. This is a collaboration with John Robinson of JRS and his wife, Fiona. It’s open in conjuction with The Outlet’s opening hours and it’s fully licensed, featuring a light and healthy breakfast, lunch and snack menu that focuses heavily on local produce – much of it grown by the Robinsons – and includes fresh scones and pastries baked by Fiona.

A retail deli within the restaurant sells a wide range of in-house jams, chutneys, Piccalilli, bread, oils and so on – all of it produced and branded for The Linen Hill. Three of the products currently on sale won recognition at last year’s Great Taste Awards.

“We’ve been busy since we opened our doors,” confirms Shaun. “We opened with about 70 covers, but that has gone up to about 90 since we reduced the retail element of the restaurant in order to fit in more tables. Our first year was definitely above our expectations.

“I think our success is down to the way that we’ve set the place up, it’s down to the food, I think, more than the premises themselves. The style here is fast-casual. We don’t have waiter service, you come up and place your order at the counter, but things like that mean I can control my costs, I don’t need five waiters on at lunchtime and if I did, the dish that costs £6 now might cost £10.”

The premises at The Outlet isn’t the only place where you can get a taste of Shaun’s cooking – there’s also a street kitchen that they’ve created inside an old furniture removals lorry that’s been fitted out with £20,000-worth of kitchen equipment. Normally based at Kingspan stadium Ravenhill, the street kitchen is also a regular visitor to trade shows and game fairs all over Ireland:

“It offers pretty much the same food as we do in The Linen Hill Kitchen, it’s all sustainably sourced,” explains Shaun. “We have fish from Keenans, meat from Peter Hannan and we’ll change the menu to fit in with the type of event that we happen to be attending.”

As for the future, Shaun confirms that the plan has always been to have another place open before the end of 2015:

“Three years from now, I think we’d like to be running two places like this and perhaps, have more than one van on the road, although the street business does tend to be seasonal,” he added. “We do want to expand, but we’re not looking to put anything that we’ve achieved here in jeopardy by rushing into anything.”