About Us

The team

The All Ireland Tapas Championship is the brainchild of three Irish Chefs, Gorka Arrieta, a Basque native living in Ireland for the past 22 years, Dublin native Robert Curley and John Harty a native of Kerry. It was from a shared love and passion for Irish and Basque cuisine coupled with a shared love of the Kingdom of Kerry, with its strong and historic links to the Basque region, that the Championships were born.
The vision for the All Ireland Tapas Championships, a Championship open to all Chefs on the Island of Ireland, of a competition celebrating the skill and passion of Chefs and a festival of Spanish food culture hosted in Tralee, needed to be realised. With the support of many Sponsors and friends, in particular Juancar Ayerbe, organizer of the Basque Pintxo Championship and Francisco Vinagre and Alicia Gomez, directors of Chef Gestión and organizers of Gastro Experiencias Extremadura, that vision was realised in April 2019 with All Ireland Tapas Championships 2019, a wonderful three day celebration of Irish, Spanish and Kerry’s food culture hosted in the heart of the Kingdom,Tralee. And now the amazing Team behind last years event are launching the All Ireland Tapas Championships 2020