Sham Hanifa wins Georgina Campbell Taste of the Waterways award

Sham Hanifa of The Cottage, Jamestown, My Kitchen by Sham Hanifa and Buffalo Boy, both Carrick-on- Shannon, is the winner of the prestigious Taste of The Waterways award in the Georgina Campbell Irish Food & Hospitality Awards 2023.

Celebrating 25 years in their current incarnation, the independent Georgina Campbell Awards represent the four corners of Ireland and are the country’s longest running food and hospitality awards.

They recognise and honour the standard-bearers in food and hospitality with particular focus, this year, on genuine hospitality, consistency, innovation and good value.

They also pay special tributes to some of the giants of Irish food and hospitality – and the brave newcomers who, against the odds, continue to delight with inspiring new businesses.

Speaking at the awards held recently at the new Bord Bia Global Hub in Dublin, food writer and author Georgina Campbell said, “Each year a theme emerges in the awards, reflecting the weight of nominations proposed by the assessment team. This year suggests a swing away from cities towards rural destinations and smaller towns, possibly reflecting post-pandemic preferences and/or a levelling up of standards. And words like unshowy, consistent, genuinely hospitable, customer-focused, and kind are typical of our nominations.”

The individual citation for Sham Hanifa read:
"A driving force in the region’s food and hospitality hospitality sector - and a true Taste of the Waterways hero - the engaging Malaysian-born Euro-Toques restaurateur, chef and cookery teacher Shamzuri Hanifa (‘Sham’), has earned many fans for The Cottage Restaurant in Jamestown, and two newer enterprises (Buffalo Boy and My Kitchen by Sham Hanifa) in Carrick-on-Shannon - each a reminder of the hospitality credentials of this important riverside town.

“What they all share is genuine hospitality, atmosphere and Sham’s food philosophy – the flavours may be inspired by distant places, but provenance is always to the fore - and his unwavering support of local producers is an inspiring way to fly the flag for the waterways.”