Life

Co Antrim chef Noel McMeel is putting Fermanagh on world stage

Award-winning chef Noel McMeel might have cooked for President Obama, Paul McCartney, Colin Farrell and Rory McIlroy over the years, but his passion is for using local producers, promoting Northern Ireland and interacting with everyday customers. He talks to Brian Campbell

Noel McMeel with former Lough Erne Resort manager Ferghal Purcell
Noel McMeel with former Lough Erne Resort manager Ferghal Purcell Noel McMeel with former Lough Erne Resort manager Ferghal Purcell

WITH the surname 'McMeel’, there was always a chance that Co Antrim man Noel McMeel would end up working in the food business.

Now a hugely successful chef who runs the kitchen at the Lough Erne Resort in Co Fermanagh, Noel has previously dazzled diners at Roscoff in Belfast, Castle Leslie in Co Monaghan, Le Cirque in New York and Chez Panisse in San Francisco.

He is no stranger to the US, having studied at Johnston and Wales University in Rhode Island and at Boston University. He was back stateside in March and took in Washington DC as part of a tour to showcase food from Northern Ireland and to encourage tourism in the north.

One of the highlights on Noel’s bumper CV must be cooking for world leaders at the G8 Summit at the Lough Erne Resort in 2013 – and he got to meet President Obama for a second time this year.

“I said to the president when I met him again in March, 'I had to make sure I came here since you’ll not be back in Fermanagh this year’,” laughs Noel, whose official title at Lough Erne is Executive Head Chef. "It was funny, because when I met the president, Michael Flatley was right beside me.”

You would think that catering for diners such as Obama, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and David Cameron might heap huge amounts of pressure on any chef but the Co Antrim man is always up to the challenge.

“It’s not more pressure, you just have to be more focussed and it’s all about timing.”

Just a couple of weeks ago he was at the 'Travel Classics International’ event in Bern and Lucerne, cooking and speaking to editors of high-profile publications including National Geographic Traveler and Men’s Fitness.

“It’s not often you get to cook for a room full of the world’s biggest editors and stand up in front of them and have their time, so it was an amazing opportunity.

“That came about thanks to Tourism Ireland, so I just wanted to get the message out that Northern Ireland is a good place to come and visit now.

“In my American tour in March I was able to tell my story to get people interested in coming over here. I was doing the tour with 14 other chefs and some of their resorts had Michelin-star restaurants but I’d say that Lough Erne is an amazing place to come and stay and play and eat and it’s on the world stage.

“When we have someone like Rory McIlroy on the world stage now [promoting Northern Ireland], we’re very lucky to have someone like that.”

And while Noel is obviously going to promote his current place of work, he is genuine in his love for his home patch. This is a man who could easily have based himself in the US but who wanted to come back to Northern Ireland to help get the place on the tourism map again.

Noel trained at Ballymena Technical College, the Northern Ireland Hotel and Catering College (NIHCC) and Belfast Institute, before starting his cookery career at The Villager in Crossgar and then Roscoff in Belfast (working with Paul and Jeanne Rankin). After then spending so much time in the US, he says he was always determined to come home to work.

“I think I always knew I’d come back. It’s all about priorities in life and you choose who you surround yourself with and for me my family is important and I’m blessed to have such a good family. I get home to see my mother [in Toomebridge] every week.”

Interestingly, Noel says his home life growing up has had a huge influence on his current job at Lough Erne.

“At home when we had visitors coming we’d always make sure that all the lawns and the hedges were cut and we had to set the table and do all our baking before people came. What I do now is identical to that but on a massive scale.

“So I’ve cooked for Rory McIlroy and a lot of big names in each of the different places that I’ve been – from Castle Leslie to cooking at Lough Erne for the G8 leaders and for Colin Farrell and Jessica Chastain and people from several Hollywood films.

“You just never know who’s going to walk through the door, so no matter who comes in it’s always about giving them a welcome and being sincere and honest.

“The key thing is to connect with people and let them know we’re happy to see them. I really do enjoy what I do.”

Noel spent seven years as head chef at Castle Leslie, where he famously cooked the wedding feast for Paul McCartney and Heather Mills in 2002.

“That was an amazing place to work and I was given so many great opportunities there,” he says of the Co Monaghan estate, before adding that he has “no thoughts of moving on from Lough Erne” at present.

He says interacting with guests is something he enjoys most about his job. And while he does take pride in “promoting the amazing places we have in Northern Ireland”, he admits that he often sacrifices his own holiday time to take part in trips such as his recent American visit.

“It can be hard, but you just have to take the opportunities that come up.”

Even when Noel is in Lough Erne, he still doesn’t have enough downtime to be able to make use of the golf course (designed by Nick Faldo) at the resort.

“It’s a dream to think that I’d have any time to be on the golf course,” he laughs.

He did, however, make time to write the book Irish Pantry, which was last year named the third best cookbook in the world at the 20th World Gourmand Cookbook Awards.

“As well as being a cookbook, it’s also a story about growing up in Northern Ireland,” he says.

Noel is passionate when he talks about his love of both cooking with and promoting local produce in Ireland north and south and says his parents shaped this passion and also made him respect “the seasonality of food”.

“At Lough Erne, because we spend so much money on food it’s important for us to make sure that whatever we spend goes back into Northern Ireland and Ireland, to enhance the economy,” he says.

“You’re always better buying from the local producer down the road. I have a saying for that, 'Look after Francie, not Francois’.”

Irish Pantry is out now, published by Running Press. For more about Noel McMeel, see Twitter.com/NoelMcMeel.