Taste Ards and North Down

Taste Ards and North Down - a leading food region where culinary innovation thrives.

Savour the tastes of our region

The finest and freshest ingredients are sourced in abundance from our fertile fields and sparkling shores and can be found at our markets, artisan food shops and dishes across the region's award-winning restaurants.

This is a place with a famed agricultural and nautical heritage which is home to world class ingredients. From small artisan producers to large-scale distributors Ards and North Down is a foodie region offering an abundance of great flavours and unique world class ingredients including the Comber Earlies potato (with PGI status), Portavogie Prawns, Strangford Lough Langoustines, and grass-fed rare-breed Irish beef to name just a few examples.

The borough is well established as a leading food region where culinary innovation thrives with key strengths such as seafood, healthy lifestyle produce, artisanal beef, bread-making, chilli, and spicy sauces, brewing and distilling. The skilled artisan producers located here reimagine local ingredients and traditional recipes to create high quality food and drink products which are unique to our place, globally recognised and available in a hub of local farm shops and delicatessens.

The Ards and North Down Food and Drink Network was established by Council in mid-2019 and includes membership of producers, independent retailers, farm shops, restaurants, food experiences and food sector professionals collaborating to continue to establish the borough as a leading food and drink destination by knowledge sharing, attending trade shows, running local food showcase events as well as developing new food tours and unique dining experiences.

Look out for our seasonal ‘Taste Ards and North Down’ programme of unique foodie experiences, showcasing our local food produce and producers at their finest, in spring and autumn. Unique events celebrating local produce, dining experiences, local produce showcases where you can learn more about our delicious fayre.

Taste AND Success

Ards and North Down has a strengthening culinary culture with leading agri-food companies exporting worldwide, award-winning eateries, leading food and drink producers supplying tier 1 fast moving consumable goods (FMCG) retailers and exporting world-wide, as well as new innovative companies starting up every month.

The creativity of these producers is celebrated and internationally recognised with a plethora of prestigious accolades including numerous Great Taste Awards, Blas na hÉireann and International Wine and Spirit competition wins.

On Wednesday 8 February 2023, local food and drinks producers were recognised at the second annual TASTE AND Local Food and Drink Hero Awards, hosted by the Council at Clandeboye Estate.

2022 proved to be a hugely successful year with 18 local food and drink producers claiming industry awards across a range of national and international standards. The TASTE AND Local Food and Drink Hero Awards recognised their achievements at a prestigious ceremony that included the inaugural presentation of the Lady Dufferin Producer of the Year Award, this year to Olivia and Stephen Stewart of Habenaro Steve’s.

Many other businesses were recognised for their achievements during the evening too, with a wide range of producers from across the Borough celebrating their successes.

Find out more

Food and Drink Shows

You will find Ards and North Downs artisan produce well showcased at the many Food and Drink Shows we attend every year, including..

Balmoral Show, May

Garden Show Ireland, June

Hillsborough Castle Honey Fair, July

Get listed with us

If you are a restaurant, eatery, café, hospitality venue or specialist food retailer in Ards and North Down and want to find out more about how to apply to be listed on the visitardsandnorthdown.com website in the food and drink section, please sign up to via the Tourism Northern Ireland Business Hub.

Find out more about how we, at Visit Ards and North Down, can further help via our Here to Help page.