Hospitality Industry Veteran, Adrian is the ex-General Manager at Carton House and Founder of the much-loved Guilt Trip Coffee and Donuts and more recently Banger, located in the hustle & bustle of Church Lane, Belfast, Banger specialises in hot damn dogs, loaded fries, wings and shakes.

  • What is the best thing about your current job?

I am enjoying being my own boss and trying to figure out the challenges that brings. Working through how to build a brand in the middle of a pandemic provides unique challenges that I hope will be short lived.

  • What was your first job in the hospitality/foodservice industry?

Emptying bottle skips in my uncles Hotel.

  • Who has been your biggest influence during your career?

I look back regularly now at my time working with and in the Merchant Hotel. Sometimes it takes being on the side-lines to see some of the great play that takes place on the pitch. Bill Wolsey runs a company full of talented people with creativity at its heart.

  • What key piece of advice would you give the future generation of hospitality professionals?

Find your place in the industry and focus. If you want to be commercial then find profit, if you want to be creative then find innovation, if you want to be operational then make people smile, if you want to take on the world then find a good network.

  • What is your favourite restaurant or type of food?

Banger is my favourite restaurant right now. I love how we take a simple ingredient and make it taste of brilliance. Cu on the Lisburn road and Jumon are places I really like to visit right now.

  • What is your favourite dish?

A Cote De Bouef cooked rare with some salt, triple cooked chips and a good glad of red is where my culinary DNA is at.

  • What is your favourite drink?

A dark n stormy

  • What or who are you looking forward most to see or meet at IFEX 22?

All the people!!! Absence makes the heart grow fonder.