Hederman Smoked Salmon

Discover the exquisite taste of Hederman smoked fish, crafted in Ireland’s only authentic timber smokehouse!

For nearly 40 years, they have perfected their beechwood smoking process, producing tender, balanced smoked salmon. Find them in the English Market and taste the tradition that top chefs and foodies love! 🐟

Smoked Butter Roasted Chicken. Had to post our Sunday supper as this was so delicious. We basted one of Tom Clancy’s delicious chickens (available from Mahon Point Market) with our smoked butter… sweet onion, celery bay and rosemary. The result gave us delicious delicate smoky notes and perfectly roasted juicy flesh… 180C, no fan, 80 mins for a very plump bird.

Tasting Room plates are a core part of our tours so that people have a chance to experience the difference our very traditional process makes. Our food is classic, mostly Irish, mostly homemade in character so less frilly than you might get in a restaurant… However like any cooks we all have an interest in food from our travels. Our chefs both originate from Italy so we have some really fantastic Italo-Irish forays. We also have a French intern, a Brazilian office manager, and Polish smoker, all of whom just love eating and sharing ideas…. Our guiding principle is authenticity and deliciousness, so even if for tourists we like to provide something genuinely Irish, we’re not limited to that all the time.

Smoked mussels. Particularly good straight from the tub on the way home from market… but if they survive the journey, then you might find yourself making several trips back and forth from the fridge. However, do your best, and don’t finish them before the toaster has popped, and give yourself time to butter the toast before devouring with the last renaming molluscs. I still can remember my first experience 22 years ago at a Slow Food event in Rosscarbery the year I met Frank, and there’s no doubt in my mind that they were the catalyst to marriage a couple of years later! True Love. For smoked mussels.

Typical Cobh from one of the terraces, where views of the harbour on sunny days or even in wintry weather are pretty spectacular and life affirming. We do markets in the Promenade every Friday morning and now you can pop into the smokehouse Tasting Room a 10 minute drive from the centre. Mon-Saturday 10 am - 5 pm

Smoked Fish Pies this week at all of our markets … this one has a filling of smoked haddock, smoked and fresh salmon with spinach cream sauce. I don’t know about you but they’re making me ravenous.

We have crush for your crush 😻

Arancini, a typical weekly special, which tend to be stuffed and fried at the moment… we all need treats to get us through the dire dirge of grey February. If you’re visiting the smokehouse (15 March onwards) one of these or something similar might issue forth from the kitchen as a little spontaneous extra for your platter of smoked fish. Book online when you’ve chosen a date…

Our whole smoked mackerel in the hot smoke kiln.

Salting. A thing of beauty.

So for the first of many bank holidays we will be open at the Tasting Room tomorrow for food, but not doing tours just yet… Caroline will be spending time between garden and writing copy while Frank does a little light dozing beside the fire. Don’t worry we will have him working hard when the tour season begins March 15th…. Make your bookings online now, 3pm any day apart from Sunday, subject to availability.

Weary but content after a day at

Our talented kitchen team led by Alessandra is coming up with some gems of winter dishes for the markets. This is a potato and leek soup topped with fried smoked mackerel and a rosemary oil… there’s also the option of a sweet chutney garnish, or you can have it just as a potato and leek soup, flavoured as it is with our smoked butter. Find us and of course at the Tasting Room.

We’ve got so much going on at the moment that a traditionally quiet time of year is feeling as sunny and sharp as the weather has been. Alessandra and Pablo have been keeping us and the rest of Cork who brave the ice well fed with new trials of irish classics such as fish pie, with Italian flavourings, and Brazilian cocinhas with Irish smoked salmon fillings. All disappearing like snow off a proverbial ditch.

A treat for anyone interested in how their food is produced. We’ll be launching tours in March. In the meantime the Tasting Room is open as a shop, Monday to Saturday 10-5 pm

Had time today to go to the spectacular Lavery Exhibition . Go if you possibly can (before 14 January) This small one was striking in its similarity to a small painting by a distant relative of Caroline’s….

Happy New Year.

Wise men - and women - visit the only smoke house.

Belvelly Bridge. Cross it when you’re travelling Cobh direction from Cork or Midleton and take a right after the bridge for the smokehouse. Then drive quarter of a mile until you see our driveway in the left. Plenty of easy parking. However no big buses please!

Christmas Time. Special gifts for delicious people. Mostly smoked fish.

Christmas luxury & honesty.

Our lovely new space is open daily from 10-5pm, for your Christmas smoked fish. On Sundays we are usually closed, but at this time of year we are here 7 days a week… it just might be hatch service due to the amount of people packing! For friends and family abroad at far flung Irish addresses, please place your orders online.

Here we go… the smoked salmon of Christmas 2023. Handmade. Irish. Delicate & Delicious

Today Christmas production starts in earnest. It’s a good idea to book your fish if you live overseas or wish to order for friends and family living away from home… it may be a month until Christmas but the key shipping week starts 11 December. Time to get your skates on in more ways than one!

Working from dawn to dusk right up to Christmas so you can enjoy Hederman smoked salmon. Time to order online (you can choose a date for dispatch or collection). And 20 days until our biggest shipping day, If you have friends & family deserving of your generosity living abroad. Link in our bio will take you directly to deliciousness in our webshop or a lovely film made about the smokehouse by and crew just before we finished our Tasting Room….

Quintessentially Frank

And relax. Thanks to all involved one way and other with the smoke house… especially our customers and our crew… a lot of hard work has been put in over the last while, and it’s so nice to have the luxury of a day not actually doing anything very much at all. Maybe just a little slow gardening and a walk out the back of the island.

Great concentration and technique required to achieve a pleasant and effective cure… Salt is the only ingredient we use apart from salmon, it always looks as if we use quite a lot but the length of time it takes is relatively short and it’s then washed off. The finished product has under 3% salt and we work hard to make sure there us a nice balance of fish salt and beechwood smoke. … our online shop is now open for orders, and Dan & Tom will soon be sharpening their knives for Christmas filleting.

The only smoke house for smoked salmon in Ireland in more ways than one. We are the only smokers who do not smoke on racks in kilns. Instead, we have a timber lined room where years and years of smoking have created darkened seasoned walls that impart their character to the fish that hang from tenter bars. The process is gentle, natural and effective, creating fish with better flavour, more tender texture and altogether more interesting than any other smoked salmon that we’ve tried. We may be biased but come and taste before you buy, so that you know for sure. We trade at the English Market Cork, Mahon Point Farmers Market, Midleton Farmers Market, Cobh Farmers Market and at our new Tasting Room shop in Belvelly, Cobh.

Nowhere else in Ireland will you find salmon smoked this way. It makes all the difference. Characterful, tender and deliciously redolent of sweet beechwood smoke.