Chef Adrian Martin: I always wanted to do something with food, despite being burned at 3

This Much I Know: "My granny used to bake with us a lot and my mam cooked a lot at home so I was always surrounded by it"

Adrian Martin is an ambassador for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland's 65 Roses Day. Picture: Shane O'Neill, SON Photographic.

When I was small, my dad had a hardware business in west Cavan and we lived above it. He sold it before the country went bust and we moved to Bawnboy. My parents are still there. It’s a really lovely, quiet, little village. The transition of moving from a main street in a town to the countryside was amazing. It was a complete contrast of living for us as kids. 

My parents planted an orchard with us, we grew fruit and vegetables, we each have a tree that they planted with us. We always had chickens for eggs and ducks and horses and dogs. They gave us the best you could possibly have. I went back to live there at the start of Covid when everything went into lockdown. It kind of made me appreciate it all again. It was very strange, it was kind of like being back in school again, but it was nice to be back.

I always wanted to do something with food. My earliest memory is to do with it. I burned myself when I was three, it was a complete accident. I always had an interest in looking at food and standing over the food with Mam and the grill fell on me and left me scarred on my torso. It's always been about food. My granny used to bake with us a lot and my mam cooked a lot at home so I was always surrounded by it. 

I remember the first dish I cooked was a chicken korma, my old boss Neven Maguire’s recipe. I couldn’t get all the ingredients. My mam sent me down to the butcher to get everything but you couldn’t get any spices or coconut milk at that time. I used to work in Supervalu when I was growing up and I would ask the managers if I could work in the deli with the food as well. I ended up going to MacNean House to work for Neven for six years.

The greatest challenge I’ve faced is running my restaurant in London during the pandemic. We opened last March and were open for seven days and had to close until July with the lockdown. 

We had to close again in October and will be closed now until maybe May. I flew over twice and it’s just so difficult because I had to quarantine each time on my own and it was tough.

So, myself and my girlfriend Hannah figured out a way to run it from here in Dublin. I’ve set up my whole apartment as a test kitchen so I can create recipes. I’ve got my water baths here and my Vitamix, a vacuum packer, I’ve all my knives and the handmade plates from the restaurant, so I can create new dishes and ideas. I have a pinboard where I draw out the dishes first and visualize them and then make them and write down the process.

I’m doing everything else over Zoom and it’s worked very well in our favour. It’s actually a lot easier. There’s a lot of stuff I would have jumped on a flight to sort out but you can actually sort a lot out by picking up the phone and having a little bit of patience. It’s taught me a lot that way, but it’s definitely been tough.

Opening the restaurant is my proudest achievement. It’s the most fun thing I’ve ever done. Myself and my brother went over and decorated it and spent a couple of weeks there together in February last year just having a laugh. Seeing the day the doors opened and customers inside eating, it was a proud moment.

I’d like to be remembered as a chef that people turn to and say he made a difference in whatever area I decide to go deeper into. What I found when I started in my culinary career was that a lot of older chefs are very hesitant to show you anything or take you under their wing or pull you along with them. There’s an awful lot of jealousy and hatred towards other chefs because they're in competition with each other. Everyone feels inferior to each other. It’s very like art.

I suppose my greatest quality is that I ignore all that. I’ve taken quite a few people under my wing and brought them with me. I want to do whatever I can to help out at the end of the day. I think the greatest example of somebody that does that is Darina Allen. She takes people under her wing and leads them onto fantastic careers.

The greatest advice I ever got was from Derry Clarke, he would say: “It’s only food at the end of the day, it’s not the end of the world.” We get so worked up sometimes about cooking and get so focused on accolades and achievements that we kind of forget that at the end of the day it’s just a bit of food on a plate and not everyone is going to like it.

• Adrian Martin is an ambassador for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland’s 65 Roses Day, which is taking place on April 9. You can donate or take part at www.65rosesday.ie