Chef talks about on learning to work smarter, not harder; the worst dish he’s ever eaten; and impending fatherhood
Chef talks about learning to work smarter, not harder; the worst dish he’s ever eaten; and impending fatherhood
The fish are not biting, so Moriarty packs up, and we head to the nearby waterside bakery Scéal, where the sourdough miso loaves and ‘nduja buns are selling like the proverbial. He greets husband-and-wife bakery owners Shane Palmer and Charlotte Leonard Kane, and waves hello to their small daughter, Robin.
He ended up doing work experience in Dublin’s hottest kitchens, including L’Ecrivain and Thornton’s. “I loved the whole kitchen atmosphere, I loved the weird people, all these introverts. It was all food and art and creativity, an amalgamation of everything I was into.” The experience ignited a “burning ambition and competitiveness”. He started copying out recipes from magazines, got a summer job in now closed Dingle restaurant The Chart House before going on to culinary college.
The following year he entered the contest again. This time acclaimed Greenhouse chef, and current chef patron of Chapter One,gave him time off to prepare. “I went in fresh and won the competition. So I had that experience of doing it one way, which ended in disaster, and changing it for the second year, going into it in a far more mature way. I’ve taken those learnings into everything in my career in the 10 years since.
“Okay, you might not end up as the three-Michelin-starred chef you thought you were going to be when you were 20 years of age but you are going to be well respected by the industry, have enough money to pay the mortgage, have a happy family life at home, play a bit of golf at the weekend. That to me is success.” He mentions chef Graham Neville, his mentor at Thornton’s back in the day and now head chef at one of his favourite restaurants, Dax, as a role model in this regard.
We talk about the state of his industry at the moment. With popular Dublin restaurants such as Rustic Stone, Brasserie Sixty Six, Ukiyo and The Chophouse closing in recent weeks, it’s a challenging time. He says there’s a “perfect storm” with rising food, VAT costs and commercial rates. He recalls a recent conversation with a notable Irish chef who described finding it hard to put a 300g piece of meat on the plate for less than €10. “That’s before anything is added ...
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