Mark Moriarty: The day you start telling yourself you’re great is the day you can retire

Everyone makes mistakes — it's the person that reacts best to the mistake who wins the competition

Sat, 16 Apr, 2022 - 06:00

Nicole Glennon

I grew up in Blackrock, County Dublin with my younger sister, Laura, and my parents, Tom and Monica. Another lady, Frances, lived across the road from us and was like our second family. We used to spend the days there while my parents were at work.

My dad can't boil an egg, god bless him. My mum is a great cook but my interest in cooking came from the time I spent in Ventry, County Kerry, where my father is from. Every weekend, week off, holidays, summers, were spent down there. I had a big interest in fishing. The natural progression from that I suppose was to learn how to cook all the stuff that we were landing every morning.

My earliest memory is eating cauliflower and cheese in a highchair, I don't know what age I was. It was steamed cauliflower, with a bit of sauce or something on top of it. We were always well fed. We never ate crap. My parents worked flat out but we sat down as a family every evening for our dinner. And it was always good food.

I feel very fortunate that I haven’t faced any great challenges in my life so far. Losing my job during the pandemic was a challenge, but I wouldn't say it was a massive challenge because my peers were in the same boat. There was a support network there. I was part of a team at work, and then I became part of a team that lost their jobs... but I was still part of a group. I think we definitely need that as people. Isolation is what we fear the most.

I was able to bring my dad on a trip to Vancouver recently for his 70th birthday. Being able to bring him away, look after him and pay for it myself off the back of the work I've been doing for the last 10 years — that's probably my proudest achievement. I was looked after so well and he did so much for me, so it was nice to be able to finally at 30 years of age, give back and treat him.

My greatest skill... I like to think I am good in times of crisis. I react well to problems, which I think is a very important quality. No day in the world is ever perfect and it's how you deal with problems that defines the quality of your life. It’s particularly key in my job. I've done numerous competitions in my career and I've judged them, and the key to competitions is everyone's going to make a mistake and it's the person that reacts best to that mistake who wins the competition. It's exceptionally rare that — especially in a competition setting — things just go seamlessly. How you react to the problem is what sets you apart. It's the same in the professional kitchen. Things go wrong every minute of every day. If you just fall apart in a heap on the ground when something goes wrong, you're absolutely no use to the team.

In this industry, you never pat yourself on the back. The day you start telling yourself you’re great is the day you can retire. If you’re a Michelin star chef, I think you’re there because there’s that innate sense inside you that you want to be better, and that’s why you end up at the top. It’s a mentality. People who are happy with what they do every day, they aren’t really progressing are they?

The life lesson I would like to pass on is that hard work pays. Anyone who's successful is successful because they've worked hard. That's the common denominator. You can be the most talented person in the world but if you don't work hard at it you won't be successful.

A good saying that has stood me in good stead is 'Have more than you show and speak less than you know'.

My greatest quality is not taking myself too seriously. If I could change something about myself, I’d like to be more patient. I think I am getting better as I get older.

What surprises me in life is how predictable and consistent human behaviour is. As much as we talk about how we are progressing [as a species], we make the same mistakes over and over again. You only have to look at the news at the moment. It's like being back in the 1940s. And you're kind of like 'how is this happening? We're supposed to be such an intelligent species'.

What scares me most in life is failure. There’s always the sense that all of this could be gone tomorrow... but that fear of failure is also key to success. When I was 20, I came second in a big cooking competition and at the time, it felt like the biggest failure in the world. I took it very badly and ended up in hospital. I was out of work for two weeks. I had just burned myself out. But it was a good learning experience. I learned about managing my energy and my time better and that working more hours than everyone else doesn't necessarily result in success. It's about being a bit smarter sometimes, rather than working harder. I won that competition the next year.

I would like to be remembered as a decent person. You don't take your CV to the grave.