Abernethy Butter spreads to top London restaurant
London celebrity chef Marcus Wareing is now using hand churned butter from Northern Irish Abernethy Butter Company in The Berkeley, his multi-award winning restaurant.
Wareing, renowned as an enthusiastic supporter of local suppliers, has listed the unique butter after sampling the product, hand churned and hand rolled by husband and wife team Will and Allison Abernethy at Dromara in county Down. The weekly order placed for The Berkeley follows Abernethy Butter's listing by high-end store Fortnum and Mason in London.
Allison Abernethy says: "Winning a regular order from The Berkeley is a really massive boost for the business and moves us onto a new level in Britain. Having The Berkeley and Fortnum and Mason on our list of regular customers is really exciting.
"Marcus Wareing saw the publicity in Britain around the Fortnum and Mason business and arranged to contact us. We were asked to send samples, which we did without the slightest hesitation.
"They loved the butter. Within a few days we received an order form to supply our butter on a weekly basis. It was tremendous news for us and will mean we'll have to step up production to enable us to meet the growing demand for the butter in Britain, as well as from existing and new customers in Northern Ireland," she says.
The Berkeley has won two Michelin stars, five AA rosettes, 8/10 in the Good Food Guide, the Rémy Martin XO 'Best Overall' Restaurant award and the Best Chef award from Harden's Guide.
The chef has also written three cookbooks, made barnstorming appearances on the BBC's Great British Menu and opened a 'British brasserie', The Gilbert Scott at London's St Pancras station. The Berkeley opened in 2008.
Abernethy Butter, in addition,recently secured a contract to supply its unique butter to Heston Blumenthal's highly regarded Fat Duck restaurant at Bray in Berkshire.
Will and Allison use only traditional techniques on a 66-acre Beechtree Farm, which has been in Will's family for generations. The cream is sourced by the couple for hand churning from a local farm that grazes dairy cows on the lush green pastures of the Lagan Valley. All that is added to the natural butter is a pinch of salt.
It supplies butter to over 60 stores across Northern Ireland. The butter has also been added to the menu of a number of top Northern Ireland restaurants. It has recently been used by up and coming chef Ben Spalding in London. The artisan business achieved two gold stars at the Great Taste Awards in 2012 and won a bronze award in the dairy category at the Royal Highland Show 2012.
The couple began testing the butter at markets across Northern Ireland including the Victorian St George's in Belfast. The response proved to be overwhelmingly positive.
The small company also set about stimulating the market by showing Women's Institutes, country fairs, church groups and vintage show how to churn the creamy butter. In addition, the butter is being used for handcrafting a creamy and smooth fudge, particularly for special occasions such as weddings. The fudge is used by many leading restaurant for petit fours.