As you were for Bushmills’ Gary

As you were for Bushmills’ Gary

One of the most striking impressions that you’ll form during any work-related discussion with Gary Stewart is just how contented he is with his lot in life.

Gary Stewart (50), is the head chef and owner of award-winning north coast eatery, Tartine at The Distillers Arms in the village of Bushmills.

He took the 85-seater venue on in April 2009 following a lengthy but remarkably focused culinary career that began following his training at the former Hotel and Catering College in Portrush. Gary immediately took a job at a restaurant in Switzerland’s largest city – Zurich – where he remained for three years and cut his teeth in the trade, as he puts it.

He spent much of his time off travelling throughout Europe, but eventually, thoughts of home prevailed and Gary returned to Northern Ireland.

Once here, he took up a position in the kitchens at the former Tullymore House hotel in Broughshane, which was owned by the Hill family, and eventually, he transferred to their other local property at Galgorm. All told, he stayed with the Hills for 15 years before taking up a position as head chef at the Tullylagan Country House hotel in Cookstown.

“After about a year there, I began to think about going out on my own,” Gary told LCN recently. “I just thought that the time was right. I knew that I was able to run other people’s kitchens for them, so I thought I would take the opportunity to do something for myself.”

Gary opened a small restaurant called Watercress above the Rope Bridge Bar in Ballintoy. He catered all the food for the pub downstairs and ran his own a la carte eatery on the first floor in the evenings. He pursued that project for four seasons – Watercress would open at weekends from St. Patrick’s Day, then every day in the summer and finally, its doors would close around the middle of October each year.

“It was great in the beginning, but eventually, I began to feel that I wanted something more permanent,” he recalls.

That realisation led him just a short distance down the road to Bushmills, where he opened Tartine in the spring of 2009 in what had been The Distillers Arms. In order to avoid confusion, Gary kept the reference to the pub in the name of the new restaurant and it has remained there ever since.

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As the chef and owner, he spends a great deal of time in the kitchen himself. He describes the offering as brasserie-style food in casual but smart surroundings – it’s a mixture of contemporary dining and old-style comfort using the best of local produce, he says.

Gary is a very active member of Bushmills Business Association which helps promote the village and he also works with the Bushmills Salmon and Whiskey Festival steering group which, along with Causeway Coast and Glens Council, organises the annual event, now in its sixth year – and very close to Gary’s heart. The 2017 event – which should happen in June – promises to be bigger than ever, he says.

He also works with a lot of the tour operators and although Tartine doesn’t open to the public at lunchtimes, it accepts bookings from tourist parties and he is seeing an increase in that element of the business lately, particularly in the numbers of Asian visitors that he is serving.

The restaurant won the NI Food Tourism Award for 2016 in May, which Gary finds particularly gratifying since this is the NI Year of Food and Drink:

“I think that the restaurant itself is very individual,” he says. “I think we’re very approachable and we’re not trying to be something that we’re not. We keep our food dishes quite simple, we use the freshest ingredients that we can find, and we keep our consistency levels high so that people will come back.”

As for priorities, he says he is focused on ensuring that his menu is varied enough to keep his customers happy. He wants to keep his standards up and with 19 full and part-time staff to look after, he sees managing the restaurant, and particularly the kitchen, as a continuous commitment.

Beyond that, though, he has no plans for major change:

“I’m really happy with what I have achieved here,” he says. “And I like to keep things real. When people say nice things about the restaurant, that’s satisfying, but I don’t really have major plans to do other things, I’m very happy with what we have done here.”

 

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