2021 Award Winners SEAFOOD CHEF OF THE YEAR 2021

Denis Vaughan Vaughans Liscannor and Lahinch Co Clare

An impressively self taught chef who started cracking and picking crab at the age of ten in his parents’ pub, Denis Vaughan is a man of prodigious curiosity who has continuously expanded his research, with visits to today's most talked about international chefs a frequent feature. Combining skill and innovation with total commitment to the best of local produce and riches of Irish seafood, his insistence on always searching out the best means that he knows every field, herd and shore where his ingredients originate - all of which has stood him in very good stead for his remarkable Covid-19 period diversification into ice cream (at Spooney’s ‘cow to cone’ ice cream parlour) and a second seafood restaurant, Vaughans on the Prom, both in the former O’Looney’s premises on the Lahinch seafront. With Denis’s chef son, James, also on the team, this is an exciting - and sustainable – development for the family, and the area.