Melissa McCabe is cooking up winning plates on the BBC and on the street

Newry-based chef Melissa McCabe has built a career around trusting her instincts.

In 2011, this meant moving to Australia and looking for work in a restaurant kitchen instead of in event planning (which is what she studied in college).

Once back home in Northern Ireland, it meant buying a food truck to bring her unique take on modern Irish cuisine to her locality and beyond.

Her instincts helped her navigate the 2024 season of BBC’s Great British Menu, where she came first in the Northern Ireland heat and moved on to the final. And it helped her decide that now is the time to sell her beloved Feast food truck and open a brick-and-mortar, sit-in restaurant of her own.

The coming weeks will be full of excitement for the talented chef, and probably a bit of nervousness, too. From 22-25 August, Melissa will be headlining the annual Big Grill Festival in Dublin. A few short weeks later, the doors of Feast Restaurant will open in the seaside village of Rostrevor, Co Down.

Melissa says the past few years have been one “pinch me” moment after another.

Big Grill Festival

“Big Grill is a festival I have always wanted to go to,” she says. “So I was buzzing when I saw Andy Noonan [Big Grill founder] in my emails asking me to take part.”

Melissa will be taking to the main stage at Big Grill with American celebrity chef Brad Leone; perhaps best known for his work in Bon Appetit magazine’s test kitchen. She will also be hosting a side pop-up dining event called Offside Menu with Melissa McCabe.

Earlier this year, Melissa took part in the first-ever Big Grill satellite event in London.

“I was nervous [in London] because I saw all the other chefs who were there,” she recalls. “I’m not a celebrity chef, but I had a great time and met loads of great people. Now, I’m really looking forward to Dublin.”

Melissa’s pop-up event will take place at a secret location and will feature a locally-sourced four-course menu.

“I thought to call it All Four Corners, because I like using produce from the whole country,” she says. “So we’re going to pick the produce from all four corners of the island of Ireland.

“Then, I’m hoping to have the restaurant open by the beginning of September,” she continues, “So Big Grill will probably be my last outing for a while. What a great platform, though – it is such a big event with so many from the industry there, and I get to shout ‘My restaurant is opening really soon.’”

Though Melissa will be the first to say she isn’t a “trained chef”, she has been working in kitchens since her teenage years.

“I worked in a kitchen in the village [Camlough] I live in,” she explains. “It was just a takeaway, but you learn the fundamentals: you have to be quick, consistent and organised.”

At 20, Melissa moved to Australia and found a job in a local pizzeria. From there, she gained confidence in her culinary abilities – she moved to Melbourne and applied to work in another restaurant.

“I was honest with them,” she recalls. “I said ‘I never went to catering college, but I know how to move in a kitchen.’ I think there are people who just have it and then some people can’t boil an egg under pressure.”

Gaining confidence

From Australia, Melissa worked in New Zealand and then moved briefly back to Northern Ireland before getting a job in a Two Rosette hotel in the west of Scotland. Finally, she moved to London to work in her first Michelin star restaurant.

This is not the kind of work a young chef does to make money, but to learn, and this is how Melissa approached her time in London. It was difficult; the days were long and the chefs she worked under were difficult.

When she moved back home, though, she returned with a style and skillset all of her own. She immediately purchased a food truck and called it ‘Feast’.

“I just went with it and ordered a food truck,” she says. “I was a lunatic; I still had ‘R’ plates on my car and all of a sudden I was towing a food truck around. I was cooking with a little bit of fire, a tiny fryer and sometimes a sous vide.

"I just treated it like a restaurant. I did stuff like steak tartare sandwiches, lamb scotch eggs – I made up the menus without really thinking. “I don’t think a lot; I just do,” she adds, laughing.

Melissa took her food truck all around the island of Ireland to partake in events and music festivals, but her favourite festival was the one she created herself.

She started Street Feast in Newry, which featured local food trucks, local beers and cocktails, music and plenty of craic.

“We had 12 to 14 food vendors – one person made Dexter burgers from their own farm, another made sourdough pizza. We did it once a month for a year and a half. I loved it.”

Melissa’s food quickly gained a positive reputation, but nothing could have prepared her for the missed call she discovered from the BBC in the summer of 2023.

There was a message asking if she was interested in taking part in the 2024 series of Great British Menu.

For those unfamiliar with the series, Great British Menu visits each region of the United Kingdom where local chefs compete in a culinary competition. Then, those winning regional chefs compete against each other in the finals. Melissa says she first thought the call was a prank.

“Then I rang them back and it was real,” she says. “I did an interview with the BBC in my sitting room and they chose me as a candidate. I was in the middle of summer season [at the time] and it was absolutely demented.

"I was out working all day and then back at 1am trying to do menus. I grew up watching Great British Menu, so even though it was tough, it was great.”

Humble Food

In October 2023, Melissa drove to Birmingham with a boot-full of Irish ingredients, like Highbank Orchards Apple Syrup and Armagh Shitake mushrooms. She didn’t have the time or space to practice her menu beforehand, so she was acting completely on instinct.

“The dishes themselves, I never put them together at the same time until it was live on the show. I loved the last week [of the show] because I had practice from the first week. I saw who I was up against [in the final] and I thought, ‘You’re never going to be in the kitchen with these boys again – just enjoy it.’ And that’s exactly what I did.

“I made my dishes exactly how I wanted to make them. I just happened to be up against Two Michelin Star chefs. I didn’t care; I was just buzzing I got to eat their food and I did myself proud. I made my nan’s soda bread with a bit of cured trout and foraged seaweeds. I just cooked nice, humble food.”

Through all this, Melissa had started feeling she had outgrown the food truck. In partnership with Roisin McCaffrey, who had previously run the food truck RetRos Grilled Cheese, the two found a former Indian takeaway in Rostrevor.

After gutting and completely refitting everything, the pair are now nearly ready to open Feast restaurant, with Melissa cooking in the back and Roisin managing front of house. They wanted to do everything on their own without outside help, so the entire project has been self-funded.

“We didn’t know how to open a restaurant,” Melissa says. “It’s a learning curve, but you’ll never learn unless you’re willing to put yourself out there.”

Feast will be a sit-in version of Melissa’s former food truck, with fewer limitations. She and Roisin are excited to offer the full range of hospitality they have always wanted to be able to provide.

“It’s going to be food on actual plates; I’m going to have an oven and a grill – I can’t wait,” she says. “I’m looking forward to having somewhere to welcome people in and give them the proper Feast experience.”

Find Melissa on Instagram @__feast___

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