Appetite for new tastes sees Food Fair thrive

Lifestyle – Reporter Judy Murphy meets Natalie McCambridge, the main organiser of annual Christmas Food and Wine Fair

The McCambridge’s Christmas Food and Wine Fair, held annually to raise funds for local schools and charities, has become a fixture on the Galway calendar since it was first held 11 years ago.

The Fair, run by the well-known city shop and restaurant, showcases food from small, high-quality Irish food producers. There’s also wine and, this year, whiskey and beer.

The 2014 Fair will take place next Thursday evening, November 20, in the Salthill Hotel. It started life 11 years ago in the Ardilaun Hotel but a bigger venue was needed because of increasing numbers.

It’s an evening where people can sample food and drink from small, usually local, suppliers that is stocked in McCambridge’s. Everything from fish, pork, seaweed; granola, hummus, pesto, breads and craft beer can be tasted.

All funds raised at the Fair go to various primary and secondary schools, and to one selected charity – €15,000 was raised and donated last year. This year’s charity is Pieta House, says Natalie McCambridge, who is the main organiser of the Fair and the third generation of her family to work in the business. Organising the Fair, which will feature 40 tables, as well as cookery demonstrations, a pop-up shop, a raffle, and discounted wine orders for Christmas is all in a day’s work for this family operation, which has emerged from the recession with renewed energy.

Two years ago, during the Volvo Ocean Race, McCambridge’s, which was long-known as a grocery and delicatessen, opened a restaurant in the first floor of its Shop Street premises.

“I’ll never forget it, it was so stressful. But a lot of planning went into it,” recalls Natalie of the opening day.

The restaurant evolved from a coffee bar that the family previously had opened in the middle of the shop, with a sandwich and deli area which proved really popular, especially at lunchtime.

“We realised that’s what people wanted and started looking at upstairs for a restaurant, with the idea of having the food style we already had in the shop,” she explains.

They were fortunate to have “fresh eyes” in Luke Anthony, overall manager of McCambridge’s, whose background was in hotel management, she adds.

Opening a restaurant during a recession wasn’t easy, but McCambridge’s had a history of surviving tough times since it opened in 1925 in the early days of the Irish Free State. Natalie’s grandfather, George, had come to Galway from Cushendall, Co Antrim, after being threatened by the Black and Tans during the War of Independence. After initially working for Powell’s, up the street, he and his brother set up a grocery store. His brother moved to Dublin and started a successful business, including a bakery, while George stayed local.

McCambridge’s, with its prime location, was a Galway establishment for decades, but in a rapidly changing city, the family realised it couldn’t rest on its laurels. Their innovation has brought fresh energy to the business, partly by generating new customers for the shop, says Natalie.

“The restaurant has brought us in a lot of new footfall, people who might have seen us as a small grocery shop or deli, or who hadn’t been in here in years.”

And they have incorporated the old and new aspects of the business, so that each feeds into the other.

The restaurant’s head chef, Heather Flaherty, uses produce from the shop in the restaurant menu, which runs from day to evening – it opens until 8pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The wine list is drawn up from stock downstairs and if diners want to choose something from the shop that’s not on the list, they can do so for a €5 corkage fee – so you can get good wine at good value, says Natalie.

The restaurant was designed by Moycullen man, Steven Walton, who previously worked on Kai and Ard Bia restaurants.

The light fittings have a New York feel while the tables and chairs bring Scandinavian design to mind, and the counter is recycled Irish oak.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.