Ross Lewis

CHEF AND RESTAURATEUR As a chef and restaurateur, at some stage you realise that if you don’t start living your life differently, it will be very hard to have the emotional resilience to survive. When you’re young in this business, everyone releases the pressure by going drinking and stuff, but in time, if you’re clever, you have to replace it with something more constructive. I really believe that the first place you start with emotional health is food. If you eat shite, you’re going to feel like shite. I eat a very vegetable-and-fish-based diet, and then I do what I want at weekends. At one stage, I came to a point where I couldn’t go on the way I was. I went to a homeopath about stress, and then, about nine years ago, I had a tumour in my thyroid. I had it tested and it was benign, but three weeks later they took out half my thyroid. I was lucky, there was no need for medication afterwards, but it was a real moment where you take stock, and realise you have to mind yourself. I think it’s an age thing, but I find now that I value reconnecting with nature. I spend all my time in a basement kitchen, so if I can get out in the woods, it’s fantastic. I live in Seapoint, and I swim there, though more in summer than winter; and I cycle a bit. I also exercise twice a week with a physio, because my back is bad and my core strength is gone from years of bending over in the kitchen. I’ve always been bad at it, but it’s important to step away from work, so I get a lot from just leaving the restaurant [Chapter One on Parnell Square] from time to time, and going over to the Garden of Remembrance or into the Hugh Lane Gallery, and just switching my head off from the kitchen. If you work in this game, I suppose you become emotionally resilient. You are dealing with people all the time — people in the kitchen, people in the restaurant. You have to find coping mechanisms, and spending time with the family is part of mine. The girls are teenagers now, but we have had a tradition of going out to eat with them every weekend since they were babies. Just spending time is what matters.