You can cook a ‘love’ly Valentines banquet at home

The husband and wife, who own The Shed Bistro on Belfast’s busy Ormeau Road, a thriving quality food hub, have created a special menu for Valentine’s Night of the very best local ingredients that can be cooked easily at home.

“The four-course Valentine’s Heat at Home banquet is available for diners to the order in advance and then collect from the restaurant to finish cooking at home using simple instructions. It’s a far cry, of course, from last year when the restaurant was buzzing with customers enjoying a range of dishes they were able to see being prepared and cooked in our unique open plan kitchen,” Jonny (36) explains.

“We were looking forward to another successful year on the back of excellent Christmas and New Year celebrations. Indeed, the hospitality industry was buoyant and set fair to make an even greater contribution to the local economy. Then everything changed radically and in a matter of weeks. We were then in total lockdown and looking how best to keep our small business ticking over and the measures we needed to take to ensure the safety of customers and staff from Covid-19,” adds Jonny.

They were quick to invest in extensive safety measures. The menu was also reshaped to offer quality dishes on a call and collect basis, an approach taken by many other restaurants and cafes here.

“Another challenge was to let existing and potential customers know that we were still in business,” Jonny continues. “We turned to social media channels to reach out to customers and were grateful to find that very many were quick to support us.”

Head chef Jonny and Christina, the manager, both passionate foodies, acquired the popular restaurant in 2018 when its original owner offered the business that had been established in 2012.

Originally from Antrim, Jonny had been keen on cooking from his schooldays and gained culinary qualifications here before moving to Britain for more experience. He subsequently held several head chef posts including in a highly rated restaurant in Edinburgh.

Overall, Jonny has more than 20 years – half of which spent in Scotland - running busy kitchens and creating original dishes including some for celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver.

He met and subsequently married Christina, originally from Slovakia, in Edinburgh. She had been working in Britain for more than a decade in sectors including catering, holding management posts with Carluccio’s and also Jamie’s Italian eateries. They now have an 18-month-old daughter, Mia, and live at Greenisland in Co. Antrim.

“We decided to move back to Northern Ireland for family reasons and also because we were attracted by the vibrancy of the hospitality sector,” Jonny explains. “I was keen to run my own restaurant and to develop original dishes from the brilliant ingredients found here from dedicated local suppliers,” he adds.

A short time running kitchens on an agency basis ended with a call from Simon McCance, the chef/owner of the award winning Ginger Bistro in Belfast’s Hope Street. “Simon suggested I should contact The Shed about the vacant head chef’s post there,” Jonny continues.

“That was about three years ago, and I appreciated greatly Simon’s approach. I subsequently met the owner of The Shed and was offered the post. It was a tremendous opportunity to run my own kitchen and create a new menu in a popular restaurant at the heart of great food community on the Ormeau Road,” he says.

“I talked it over with Christina and we both decided it was too good to miss. We acquired the business in November 2018 and began implementing growth plans. It was an immensely exciting time for us,” he adds.

Changes implemented included positioning the kitchen as the focal point of the restaurant. “We wanted the kitchen at the heart of the restaurant for diners. We believe we’ve created a very unique and transparent dining experience where the whole kitchen is on show and diners can quite literally hear and smell their food sizzling away,” Jonny says. New local suppliers, such as the multi-award winning Hannan Meats, Ewing’s fish and seafood, Thompson’s Tea, and Drayne’s Farm Ice Cream, have been added. Vegetables and seasonal fruits are also sourced from local farms.

Christina has taken on the front-of-house role to ensure a memorable experience for diners.

Plaudits for excellence have followed deservedly including two Bistro of the Year titles in the prestigious Northern Ireland Food Awards and for casual dining in Co Antrim in the Northern Ireland Hospitality Awards. “We’re now really well positioned for growth when the coronavirus threat has been overcome - hopefully soon - and we are able to open our doors once again,” he adds.

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