He lost his business and his wife
NICK MUNIER trips over a clump of strewn cables, buzz saws and uprooted floorboards as he prowls the ground floor of his new restaurant, Avenue. Wearing a muzzle of designer stubble, a typically Gallic Lacoste sweatshirt and his trademark Peter Sellers eyewear, he stands like a king amid the rubble.
The building project could easily be a metaphor for his life. His role in his first restaurant, Pichet, has ended – as has his relationship, with his wife, Pichet co-owner Denise McBrien. The personal and professional upheaval could have broken him but, out of the despair, Munier found salvation in an abandoned site on Crow Street in Temple Bar.
The three-storey eatery (Avenue, ‘a venue’, get it?) which once housed Robbie Fox’s ill-fated creole restaurant, Tante Zoe’s, will now make or break the one time maître d’ of Marco Pierre White. But he is philosophical about coping with his loss.
‘It is going to be a huge project,’ he says, jumping over a crate of pictures. ‘I have learned from whatever mistakes I have made at Pichet but ultimately I had to find a project for myself. I stumbled upon this building, I met the landlord and we shook on a deal. He knew I was going through my legal problems with Pichet, so we had a gentleman’s agreement and he waited for me – which I couldn’t believe. He was inundated with interest from Starbucks and fast-food chains so I feel very fortunate.’
The irony that you can actually see Pichet from the top of the road isn’t lost on Nick. He insists that it is unintentional, rather than an all-out turf war – even if he was forced to sign a barring order prohibiting him from entering his old premises.
‘The location being close is just a coincidence,’ he says. ‘I knew I had to be in the centre of town. I didn’t want to go to the suburbs. There aren’t too many good sites around and it is all about footfall. I was just fortunate to have that deal done. If I hadn’t, I would have been a broken man.
‘It would have really hurt my pride to have to go and work for someone else after opening Pichet and making it happen. I signed an agreement in November that I wasn’t allowed to be within 10 yards of the place, which was weird, but since then I haven’t thought about it. I have been focused on my new place.’
While best known as a front-of- house man, he started his working life as a commis chef with the acclaimed Roux brothers in their Michelin-starred London restaurant.
When Nick launched Pichet in 2009 it was on the back of a flurry of publicity. The gimmick was Nick’s Bistro, a popular TV3 documentary that followed Munier and his partner-incrime, head chef Stephen Gibson, in the weeks before opening night.
The show proved an overnight success, Pichet thrived as the food and the ambience carried them through the recession and it has been flying ever since.
But when Nick’s personal life broke down, the writing was on the wall for not only his marriage but the business he had poured his heart and soul into. While he is upbeat about the future, he admits leaving Pichet was a long, arduous process.
‘It was hard to walk away from Pichet. I went to mediation and I tried to hold on and buy the others out – that was tough mentally. Then one day we went into mediation and we were all in separate rooms with our legal teams. Before lunch, I thought I could sway them to buy the shareholders out but the price was too high and I couldn’t afford it.
‘It took me four hours from that moment to agree to let it go.
‘In truth, it had been coming for two years but I just had to admit defeat. The next day, I booked a ticket to Paris and I went for a week.
‘I visited my old haunts, went back to my roots, went to my grandparents’ grave and prayed for some advice. I came home with a newfound verve and drive to open my own place and I just moved on.’
There is no doubt that the new location is brimming with potential. The front of the building is deceptively small and opens into a long, open dining room. Nick claims Avenue will bring a new brand of casual dining to Dublin, with his premier dining room providing a predominantly ‘clean’ menu centrally focused on highprotein, low-carbohydrate food at an affordable price.
The second offering, entitled ‘Éclair de Luxe’, is a homage to Orient Express opulence and is housed on the first floor. This is an all-day casual dining experience featuring everything from a café au lait to steak frites.
The third part of his plan involves a cocktail and dessert bar to cater for the hordes of Temple Bar hen parties – and Nick is adamant that the whole concept will work.
‘I remember going in to see it and because the previous owners [had left suddenly], there were 400 old chairs everywhere and the basement was full of junk,’ he says. ‘But I immediately could see past that and see
It would really hurt my pride to go and work for someone else