Calvey Family's Achill Mountain Lamb

Archive - all the best places to eat, shop and stay in Ireland. A local guide to local places.
  • Achill Mountain Lamb
  • Achill Mountain Lamb
  • Achill Mountain Lamb
  • Achill Mountain Lamb
  • Achill Mountain Lamb
  • Achill Mountain Lamb
  • Achill Mountain Lamb

It’s not an easy thing to make a good lamb burger. If it was, lamb burgers would be a staple of our culinary culture, and they’re not.
The problem is balancing the correct amount of lamb fat to make the burger juicy, whilst not allowing the fat to overwhelm the meat with its forthright taste
If you wanted to find a solution to this problem, you might reckon the only way to do it is to breed a type of sheep that has a small amount of sweetish fat.
Well, Lo and Behold! The Achill Blackface sheep that the Calvey family have bred and reared on the island for almost 60 years hits that target perfectly, which explains why Grainne Calvey’s lamb burgers are so darn good.
Happily, the burgers are only one small element of the story. Ms Calvey also make a killer lamb sausage: serve this with some lentils and you have the best sausage hot pot possible.
The lamb burgers and lamb sausages came as part of the Calvey family's lamb box, ordered from the butcher’s shop at Keel, on Achill Island. The lamb meat itself – the loin, the shoulders, the neck, the shanks – are, of course, peerless: Calvey's Achill lamb is one of the most distinctive and delicious artisan foods produced anywhere in Ireland, and there is no other lamb that tastes like this, with its perfect balance of sweetness and salinity.
Magic meat, no less.

53.975007, -10.08215
The Calvey Family
Keen, Achill lsland, County Mayo
+ 353 98 43158 (restaurant) + 353 87 290 8129 (butchers)

More along the Mayo coast

Krem Gelateria & Cafe
Bridge Street, Westport, Co Mayo F28 XDE43
Savoir Fare
Bridge Street, Westport F28X622
Cornrue Bakery
New Road, The Demesne, Westport, Ireland F28 YD89
Mulranny Park Hotel
Mulranny, County Mayo.
Castlebar Road, Westport, County Mayo
Blacksod, Belmullet, County Mayo