Irish Chefs To Host ‘Far-Fetched Dinner’ in Loam Restaurant In Aid Of Refugee Chefs

Four foreign-born, Irish-based chefs will come together with a group of Syrian refugee chefs in Galway to create a Far-Fetched Dinner in Michelin-starred Loam on Sunday, October 29.

Chefs Damien Grey of Dublin’s Heron & Grey (Australia), Takashi Miyazaki of Miyazaki in Cork (Japan), Jess Murphy of Kai in Galway (New Zealand) and Mickael Viljanen of The Greenhouse in Dublin (Finland) cook dinner with five Syrian chef colleagues on the night.

As Ireland has become a home to these talented ex-pat chefs, welcoming them and giving them the opportunity to contribute and create valuable and exciting new communities around each respective business, these four talents want to pass on that same sense of welcome to new refugee chefs.

“We are asking the public along to enjoy a night of big flavours and big hearts,” says chef Jess Murphy of Kai. “We have been generously supported in this project by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and by some of the exceptional producers that the four of us are privileged to use in our own restaurants on a daily basis. As a bunch of immigrants, we have all had our own experiences of feeling like aliens in a foreign land. It makes sense to us to try and ease other peoples’ entry into this country, however we can.”

With a chronic shortage of chefs in the Irish hospitality industry, this is an opportunity for refugee chefs to flex their kitchen muscles. They also get to share their particular knowledge, expertise and skills to the benefit both of the four cooks sharing their kitchen, and of dinner guests on the night.

The Far–Fetched Dinner in Loam, Galway on Sunday 29th October with wine costs €120 per ticket, and tickets are available here.