2025
Celebrating excellence in writing, broadcasting and content on Irish food.
About
The
Awards
Now in their fifth year, the Irish Food Writing Awards celebrates the best books, journalism, restaurant critics, feature writing, recipe writing, photography, podcasts and social media on Irish food and drink.
Entries for our 2025 awards open on the 22nd of April 2025. For updates on our competition dates and categories please sign up for our email updates.
Our
Judges
Our judges are gleaned from the best food writers, chef and journalists worldwide.
Our final line-up will be announced later but some of our lead category judges are as follows-
Dan Saladino
is a BBC journalist specialising in food and agriculture. His first book, Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them has received numerous awards, including the Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the Year. Dan is a documentary maker and presenter of Radio 4’s The Food Programme, which explores the economics, politics, science, and culture of food. He is a recipient of a James Beard Foundation Award for food journalism.
Tom Hunt
is an award-winning chef, food educator, writer, climate change activist and author of Eating for Pleasure, People & Planet. Hunt prioritises people and the environment within his work, and believes in a world with a fair global food system where our actions benefit other people and nature. Tom's food writing and recipes appear in The Guardian, The Telegraph, Olive Magazine and many others.
Tom Parker Bowles
is a British food writer and critic. A champion of traditional ingredients and meats, Tom is the author of seven cookbooks and in 2010 won the Guild of Food Writers award for his writing on British food. He has hosted and appeared in many radio and television cookery programmes and writes in the Mail on Sunday.
Colman Andrews
is an American author and an authority on food and wine. He co-founded Saveur magazine and was the restaurant columnist for Gourmet. An authority on Catalan food, he has written an acclaimed book on Ferran Adria and also publications on Italian and Mediterranean food. In 2009 Andrews published important work on Irish cookery and food traditions: The Country Cooking of Ireland.
Charlotte Pike
is an award-winning cookery writer and teacher. She has published five books on cookery and writes for many publications including The Guardian and The Telegraph. She is a Slow Food UK Chef Alliance member and is the current chairperson of the UK Guild of Food Writers.
Nigel Barden
Well known broadcaster Nigel Barden has been writing and broadcasting on food and drink for over 30 years. He is a champion of provenance and craftmanship, seasonality and quality ingredients. He can currently be heard on BBC London and Scala Radio.
Richard Croasdale
Award-winning feature writer, author and editor, Richard has been in journalism for over twenty years. He is currently the editor of Ferment, the UK's biggest-selling beer magazine. He is also the author of The Craft Beer Dictionary published in 2018.
Catherine Mack
Sustainability is Catherine’s passion and she has been writing about sustainable travel and food for many titles such as The Irish Times, The Telegraph and The Guardian and National Geographic for over ten years. She is the author of Ecoescape; Ireland; Slow travel, places to stay, food and drink and is a regular speaker on sustainability issues
Andy Clarke
is a UK based food and wine writer and TV producer. Andy has appeared on many television and radio broadcasts and developed and produced the longstanding BBC series Saturday Kitchen with James Martin. He currently appears on BBC’s This Morning programme and presents a drinks item on the Alan Titchmarsh show.
Xanthe Clay
Writer and cook Xanthe Clay has been the food columnist for The Saturday Telegraph for over twenty years and has a particular interest in ethical farming and sustainability. She is also a cookbook author; her books include Recipes to Know by Heart, The Contented Cook and Ten Minutes to Table - Real Food in Ten Minutes - No Cheating.
Robb Walsh
is an American-born food writer and cookbook author.
Robb is a three times James Beard Journalism Award winner, now based in The Burren, Ireland having been food critic at The Houston Press for ten years. Robb founded Foodways Texas, a non-profit organisation to preserve and promote Texas food culture. Robb has a wide knowledge of beer and Texan food which you can find on his blog robbwalsh.com.
Fiona Beckett
is The Guardian’s wine critic. She also writes extensively on food and is a contributing editor to Decanter magazine. She judges on several wine awards including the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers Awards.
Her website www.matchingfoodandwine.com is dedicated to food and wine pairings.
Award
Categories
This competition is to reward and share excellence in writing and content production on Irish food.
It is open to writers, journalists, chefs, bloggers, broadcasters, photographers and those who promote Irish food on social media. Entries will be open from April 22nd to May 31st 2025 and the winners will be announced in an online event in September.
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Restaurant Writing
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Recipe Writing
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Drinks Writing; wine, spirits and beer
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Food Writing/Feature Article
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Writing on Sustainability in Irish Food
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Writing on Irish Food Producers
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Investigative Writing
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Writing on Specialist and Ethnic Cuisines in Ireland
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Food Magazine or Supplement
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Cookbook of the year
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Food photographer of the year
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Food Broadcast or Podcast
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Online Food Writing; Substack, blogs & other forms of online writing
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Emerging food writer of the year
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Outstanding Contribution to Irish Food Writing
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Culinary Student Award
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Food Instagram/TikTok Award
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Seafood Writing Award
Please before entering make sure to go to the categories listed on the Categories link. Click on the category you are interested in to find the exact criteria for that award. Each category has differing criteria and the number of articles to be submitted. Please join our mailing list for updates on competition dates
Our
Team
SUZANNE
CAMPBELL
Author, journalist and broadcaster Suzanne Campbell writes on food and farming issues for Irish newspapers as well as reporting for RTÉ radio and television. Suzanne is a former series producer of the RTE television series Ear To The Ground and has won the International Farming Journalist of the Year broadcast award.
She is the co-author of the critically acclaimed book “Basketcase – What’s Happening to Ireland’s Food?” which assesses Ireland’s relationship with food and farming, and has written two documentaries on food for RTE television. She’s passionate about Irish ingredients, particularly cheese, but is yet to make a passable French onion soup
PAUL
O'CONNOR
Paul works in many areas across the hospitality industry; particularly in marketing and social media for Irish food producers, restaurants and food festivals.
He has travelled widely and is a hotel critic and a judge for the Hotel and Catering Gold Medal Awards.
Paul has worked with the Nepalese Government on the development of their food and hospitality sector and was the head judge for awards to celebrate the best Asian food in Ireland.
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