Their diner in Barry is on every food-lover's dream list of destination; their cookbook has been greasily thumbed by every barbecue enthusiast with a bag of charcoal and an ambition to smoke stuff.
Yet when they told BBC One audience of 11 million people on Saturday Kitchen that they were due to be married, Sam and Shauna of Hangfire Southern Kitchen put not just their recipes and BBC nous in the spotlight but themselves.
We caught up with the award winning restaurant owners to find out a bit more about them and their incredible journey, from backpacking around the world together to quitting their jobs in pursuit of some life goals.
It's a poetic full circle journey, in spite of the coronavirus plans that halted their wedding, as the pair explain their 20 years together from the very beginning as young professionals starting their careers in Cardiff.
“I’m from Belfast, from a conservative religious family. Sam grew up in Brecon in a more liberal family” Shauna says.
“Sam moved from Brecon to Cardiff to become a graphic designer and I came from Belfast to Cardiff to train as a social worker. We had a mutual group of friends who all felt me and Sam should be together, set us up on a date and here we are 20 years later”.
The two quickly dived into Cardiff’s gay scene, heading to Club X and the iconic drag bar Minsky’s. During this time, Sam developed the nickname ‘Sam the chef’ and it’s not because she makes an amazing BBQ…
“Sam was one of the most prolific female DJs on the club scene in Cardiff. So she actually had a night called the King’s Kitchen which is why I call her ‘Sam the chef’” Shauna chuckles over the phone.
“Everybody thinks I call her that because she’s the chef in the restaurant, but I call her that because she was the DJ at King’s Cross Pub, which is no more - RIP!”.
Before their award winning restaurant and their TV show, Sam and Shauna decided to quit their careers for the first time in 2004 travelling from China to Columbia and everywhere in between. From then on their relationship only grew stronger.
In 2012, the couple quit their jobs for the second time, this time in pursuit of a life-time goal.
“In 2012 we quit our jobs to go on a big epic road trip across the southern states of America. It wasn’t initially in search of American BBQ, it was to meet Dolly Parton” Shauna tells us.
“We made our way from California to Nashville and we had a friend who’s married to Dolly Parton’s drummer, so we ended up living with them for months hanging out with Dolly in the studio”
“That’s when we fell in love with, and completely intoxicated by, American BBQ” Shauna adds.
The couple knew they had a love for people, food and music. When coming across American BBQ on their tour, the pair knew it was the perfect icing to finish off the cake.
“When you want to set up your business you’ve got to think about: What do you love? We love people, we love music and we love food, so American BBQ was the thing that sat in the middle of that holy trinity” Shauna says.
“We wanted to bring that back to Wales, we bought a smoker, brought it back to a dodgy little boozer in Splott called The Canadian and the rest is history”.
Sam and Shauna ended up coming out live as a couple in front of 11 million people on the day their wedding was supposed to go ahead, and it was completely a spur of the moment decision.
“We were in rehearsals in the morning, for us to be together we asked, could we mention that? That we were a couple... So we could explain to viewers why we weren’t sitting two meters apart” Sam explains.
“I think it is important to bring these things to the front, so we can be role models, so we can be torch bearers if you like. It’s completely fine to be who you are”.
The couple plan to get involved with Pride events in the future, admitting there needs to be more attention and concern given to the more marginalised groups in the LGBT+ community.
“I think there's a lot of people marginalised in society, especially the trans community, the queer community and I just think these are the subjects we really need to be talking about” Sam tells WalesOnline.
“It fills my heart with joy to see smaller communities getting together behind the pride movement. It’s not just about the big cities having these huge celebrations of gender and sexual diversity, our home of Llantwit Major and our second hometown of Barry get behind things like that”
The couple admit they’ve never been in the closet as individuals or hid the fact they were a couple, but for the success of their business, they thought an announcement would come as a distraction.
“When we set up the business, we did have this feeling of not really talking about our sexuality because we didn’t want it to be a distraction” Shauna admits.
“If you type into Google ‘Sam and Shauna Hangfire’ what comes up is ‘Sam and Shauna: are they a couple?’ So I feel there's lots of people who wanted to ask the question but because we never opened that discussion up, people just didn’t ask”.
After all their successes and solidifying their name in the food industry, sweeping up multiple awards and a three-series strong television show, the couple have one more life-goal to tick off their list.
“Our main goal in life now we’ve done the Dolly thing, we want to be judges on RuPaul’s Drag Race” Shauna tells us.
“I know Ru is probably an avid reader of WalesOnline, so let’s make that happen!”.
