Meet the Chef: Laois TV chef and Ballymaloe founder Rory O'Connell

In our September  / October Laois Life magazine, we spoke to much-loved chef Rory O'Connell. Read about his cheffing journey below!

Twice awarded the title of Ireland’s Chef of the Year, Rory O’Connell has become a household name synonymous with tasty, homegrown Irish food.

As the former head chef of Ballymaloe House and member of the O’Connell/Allen cheffing dynasty, Mr O’Connell now runs the renowned Ballymaloe Cookery School with his sister Darina Allen and his niece-in-law, Rachel Allen.

Though one of Ireland’s cheffing giants, Mr O’Connell had never intended to pursue this culinary career.

“I fell into cheffing by accident, I had gone to university to study law, which didn’t work out as I had no interest,” he laughed.

“I messed around in jobs for a few years and found myself in Ballymoe working a summer job in reception. When the job finished, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. I asked if I could work in the kitchen for a few months.

"I also wanted to learn to cook for my own gratification. Within a couple of weeks, I understood that I was very happy there and greatly enjoyed it. It wasn’t a conscious decision to become a chef, it was an unbelievably fortunate sequence of events,” he shared.

“Food was cooked all of the time, and we were encouraged to help our mother. We peeled potatoes and apples, so there was no real mystery to cooking for us. We saw it as something that happened all the time, something that we could pick up and quickly learn if it was something we had to do. Our mother was a wonderful cook,” he said.

The chef explained that though their mother was a busy woman, healthy eating was a cornerstone of their diets as children.

“We had a very good garden, and anything else we used came from either the little local shop in Cullohill, or a butcher's shop in Rathdowney or Ballacolla. For bigger or more exotic treats, we got food from Kilkenny or Dublin. It was local, beautiful Irish cooking,” he reminisced.

When pursuing a personal passion as a career, it can prove difficult for many to keep that passion alive. Rory shared that thankfully, he does not encounter this issue.

“I will always feel that passion because I love to eat, I love the pleasure and joy of feeding people, and the physical act of cooking, making and working, it’s a physical and mental activity,” he noted.

“I always love how food can be explained scientifically, the causes and reasons for something to grow. But for me, there is something magical and otherworldly that a little tomato seed in the ground can give you bushrows of tomatoes. All ingredients can be seen as a gift, and that hits me right in the solar plexus,” he admitted.

The chef highlighted that to him, the most important part of cooking is supporting local growers.

“Use as much local food as possible, we have incredible dairy, beef and lamb industries, but we all know that our fruit and vegetable growers need support,” he said.

“Food growing is becoming less of a thing, it will disappear unless we buy Irish fruit in season. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s not. It’s the root of the quality of food, and it’s reflected in the taste of the dish," the chef finished.

For more Laois stories and a recipe from Rory O'Connell, see our Laois Life magazines!