From Catering College To Europe's Top Kitchens

Neven Maguire left school after his Junior Certificate. He knew what he wanted to do, and it was not more classroom work. He went to Fermanagh College, just across the border, to train as a chef^[1].

Belfast First

His first placement took him to Belfast. He joined Roscoff, the restaurant of Paul Rankin^[1]. For a young cook from a village kitchen, it was a big step into a busy, ambitious restaurant.

Then he went further. Neven worked in Michelin-starred kitchens across Europe: at the Grand Hotel restaurant in Berlin, at Lea Linster's restaurant in Luxembourg and at Arzak in San Sebastián^[1]. Each kitchen had its own language, its own rhythm and its own rules.

In San Sebastián he saw how a family restaurant could become famous around the world. In Luxembourg and Berlin he learned the precision of fine dining. He packed those lessons into his bags and brought them home.

A Teenager At The Stove

In 1993 the food writer Georgina Campbell drove to Blacklion after a reader recommended the little restaurant^[2]. What she found surprised her. In the kitchen was a teenager, just out of catering college, cooking beside his mother Vera^[2].

His father Joe ran the front of house. It was a true family business, and it would stay one^[2]. Campbell would later call the place a national treasure and give it her top award^[3].

Plenty of chefs would have stayed in the big cities after kitchens like those. Neven chose the opposite path. He brought what he had learned back to a small border village, and he made the village worth the drive^[2].

Those years of training set the pattern for the rest of his career. Learn from the best, wherever they are. Then come home, and cook with the farmers next door^[1][2].