Life a feast or a famine for celebrity chef

FROM Michelin-star restaurant to takeaway burgers. Such is the breadth of the culinary world of celebrity chef, Conrad Gallagher.

Visitors to the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court this week have been able to dine out on colourful insights into the highs and lows of the one-time enfant terrible of Irish restaurants.

Yesterday, we learnt how Conrad’s piece de resistance came in early 1998 when he became the youngest- ever chef to receive a coveted Michelin star for his Peacock Alley restaurant which was flourishing with a clientele that caused his staff to be “slightly in awe”.

The chef’s former PA, Hazel Hurley reminisced how the world was indeed Conrad’s Clarenbridge oyster following his appearance on the Late Late Show and the birth of his daughter a few months earlier.

However, sadly for Conrad, if he was an acknowledged angel in the kitchen, he proved to be something of a devil between the balance sheets.

Huge financial difficulties emerged within a short time of moving Peacock Alley to the Fitzwilliam Hotel in late 1998 leading ultimately to Conrad’s decision to sell some of his paintings to the hotel management for stg£20,000.

The temperature in Conrad’s kitchen certainly rose following his arrest in December 2000 for the alleged theft of three paintings from Peacock Alley.

Ms Flynn Rogers said she was so concerned about the chef’s welfare after his detention that she had called out to his house in Killiney the following evening. There she found Conrad staring into space with the TV turned on without sound.

“I’ve been called many things but I’m not a thief,” said Conrad, acknowledging that his name had frequently graced the newspapers for more than just restaurant reviews.

With Conrad, it seems life is always either a feast or a famine.