Elaine Murphy

This passionate restaurateur has had a lifelong devotion to entertaining, and cooking Chinese food for her childhood friends

What did your mother make you?

My mother was, and is, a great cook and baker. My favourites of her dishes are her chicken-egg-fried rice and her amazing Shrove Tuesday pancakes. Her bread stuffing with Christmas dinner — or the Sunday chicken roast — is still the best in the world, hands down!

The meal you will always remember?

I love old-school glamorous food — think The Legal Eagle’s new 1970s Sunday lunch. My most memorable meal, for some personal reasons, was a glorious beef Wellington, with dauphinoise spuds, cauliflower mornay, buttered asparagus, and, for dessert, baked Alaska, cooked for me by my partner on an anniversary. Fabulous.

First dish you ever cooked?

Queen cakes. Then I began making millionaires’ shortbread for a cafe when I was 12. When Ken Hom’s cookbook came out in the 1980s, I was all over the Chinese dinner parties — aka lunch — for my friends.

What is your comfort food?

Pasta in all its guises. Or a roast dinner with my mam’s stuffing — see above!

What is your hangover cure?

It’s too rare an event for me to have one.

What do you drink?

Gin and tonic all the way.

You can only eat three things for the rest of your life, what are they?

Pasta, broccoli, and pasta.

Nicest smell in the world?

Hot bread, just baked, and melting butter.

What is your guilty pleasure?

Guilt is a wasted emotion. I’m up for any type of good gourmet garbage. I love a good burger, sambo, or fried chicken. Embrace them, and don’t feel guilty! Maybe just not every day... How important is food to you? Extremely important. I do feel it defines a landscape, a culture, even, but, that said, I’m completely aware of the privileged nature of such discussions about food and the need to remember the politics around it, the politics of labour, distribution, scarcity. We can’t have a macro discussion about food, or its significance in any culture without contextualising it. On a micro level, it’s the way I get a sense of a place, devise an itinerary, and meet people I connect with.

You can go anywhere and have anything to eat with any one person. Where, what and who?

I’d love to spend time with Emma Goldman, the American anarchist, journalist, drama critic and feminist. To fund her passage to Russia, she reluctantly opened an ice-cream parlour. Apparently, it was fantastic! I would love to sit eating ice cream with her and discuss the epoch she helped shape.

Favourite restaurant?

Ah, not fair! I love Kai in Galway. But I also love Ristorante Romano on Capel Street, in Dublin. I love Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud on Merrion Street, but I also love fish, chips and curry sauce from my local Macari in Inchicore.

What’s your sweet treat?

Chocolate. Any format. Mostly Cadbury’s. Any kind of custardy tart.

Are you careful about what you eat?

No! Well, yes. I guess I eat well, but honestly, if it’s good food, go for it. Life’s too short for bad food — and for overly conscientious self-denial. Elaine Murphy is director of The Winding Stair Group, which includes The Legal Eagle, named Best Gastro Pub at the RAI Awards, see thewoollenmills.com In conversation with Sophie White

“Life’s too short for bad food — and for overly conscientious self-denial!”