‘The apprentices learn everything on their journey’
IWAS the first boy in my school to study home economics for the Junior Cert. It’s a great subject and it sets you up for life; I couldn’t recommend it enough. When I was about 12, I knew I wanted to be a chef. I was living in a working restaurant with my parents, so I was under no illusions as to what the work would be like.
My mother worked in the kitchen of the MacNean Bistro, as it was then, in Blacklion, so I started with her. It really wasn’t a surprise to her then when I wanted to leave school after the Junior Cert and go into the family trade. Before I left school though I had made my mark with the home economics. I started off in the kitchen doing all the basics; peeling vegetables, sawing bones to make stock, scrubbing down cooker tops, the usual. All glamour…
By the age of 17 I was a chef in the family restaurant kitchen and studying in Enniskillen College in Fermanagh just over the Border. The college overlooked the fact that I hadn’t done my Leaving and took me on anyway because they knew I was now an experienced chef.
I was learning on the job and in college. I was a de facto apprentice commis chef.
We had tough years in the restaurant during the Troubles; we closed down between 1973 and 1989. Twice, bombs went off outside on the street. You never knew how many customers you were going to have — six or 20? It was very hard.
I continued to study and train and, aged 21, I got my big break. I won the Euro Toques Young European Chef of the year in the week of my 21st birthday. The win opened all sorts of doors for me. I went to work in Dublin and further afield at the two Michelin star Lea Linster in Luxembourg, and I never looked back.
However, I maintained my ties with Enniskillen College and when I was back in Ireland I taught there two days a week, even when I reopened the restaurant in Blacklion in 2001. I have found some of my best staff through the colleges.
Carmel McGirr, my head chef, came through Enniskillen and worked with me along the way. That’s how we operate now. We work with the colleges, including Killybegs and Dundalk, and when we spot a student with potential we invite them here, see how they get on with the team and consider them for an internship.
Every year we look for interns or apprentices in which to invest. It is a fantastic opportunity to earn and learn as commis chefs or chefs de partie. I don’t look for degrees. I want passion and hard work and talent and attitude. Like me, the apprentices start with the basics and learn everything on their journey. And while they are working with me, they learn in the colleges too.
I see them travel worldwide and sometimes they come back to us. I have a staff of 65; 14 chefs, of whom 10 are women. It’s not by design — it is just how it has turned out. We have a calm and creative kitchen. We work hard, but I also believe in people having time off and real lives.
You look at the TV chefs — all fire and glamour; we are neither in my restaurant.
Our twins are seven years of age, and are both great little foodies. If they want to go into the industry I will nurture them and encourage them to do so. The way I was.