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Living with a top chef: ‘We don't have a dishwasher. It's me. I am the dishwasher'

Living with a top chef: ‘We don't have a dishwasher. It's me. I am the dishwasher'

Irish Times21-06-2025
Living with a chef sounds like it should come with perfectly torched mackerel, a fridge full of jarred ferments, and someone whispering 'umami' over your Tuesday lunch. In reality? It's a lifetime as an unpaid kitchen porter, avoiding knives that come with rules, and knowing exactly when to leave the room. But, yes – the food is excellent.
'He's always giving out to me for not using enough butter'
Catherine Dundon on Kevin Dundon, executive chef at Dunbrody House Hotel
Kevin and Catherine Dundon
'If you're foostering around and taking too long, or maybe on the phone while you're getting dinner, it will be, 'Oh Jesus, just get out of the way and I'll do it myself,'' says Catherine Dundon, who runs Dunbrody House Hotel with her husband, Kevin.
'He's the same with the kids. He'd be nearly over their shoulder going, 'Would you not do it this way?' And they're like, 'I'm 25. I don't need you over my shoulder.' And then we just say, 'Okay, well do it yourself.' He knows he could have it done in 10 minutes flat, and it's taken us half an hour. He often just loses patience and says, 'No, no, no. Just give it to me here.' And I've absolutely no problem with that, I'll just pour myself a glass of wine,' she laughs.
It may sound like a dictatorship, but the domestic arrangement is a collaboration, albeit one with battlefield rules. They both cook – Kevin in full chef mode, with butter and cream, using every pot in the kitchen, Catherine with a one-pot shepherd's pie. 'He's always giving out to me for not using enough butter,' she says. 'He'd be turning his nose up at my mashed potatoes.'
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When Kevin cooks for the family, it's not tweezers and dots of sauce. It's big hitters: 'amazing carbonara,' passed on to the kids who now make it for their friends, legendary Yorkshire puddings, and roast pork with crackling. Christmas Day is a solo performance. 'He will do the entire thing, but always, it's: 'Would everybody please leave the kitchen and leave me alone?''
No one's complaining – everyone sits down, every night, and Sundays are sacred.
'Does he let me touch his knives? No'
JoJo Sun on Barry Sun, chef/patron of Volpe Nera
Ian, Jojo, Barry and Emma Sun. Photograph Nick Bradshaw
People assume it's fine dining on demand. 'You're so lucky,' the school mums say. And I say 'No. He doesn't cook that often,'' says JoJo. It's not nightly haute cuisine, but JoJo knows how to work the system. 'If I want something, I ask the kids to ask him. And every time the kids ask him, he will do it,' she says. Especially their youngest – a nine-year-old fish fanatic who eats every type of fish and seafood. 'He thinks his dad's tastes better. Even if I cook the same thing.'
When Barry cooks, it's not about theatre. 'He doesn't follow recipes. He can just make it work,' says JoJo. 'He'll clean a little bit. Then disappear.' Offers to take the bins out are made while backing out of the kitchen.
He's not a tyrant, though. 'He likes the chat. If he's cooking, he likes people around.' But like most chefs, his kitchen kit is off-limits. 'Does he let me touch his knives? No. But they look scary. They're so sharp,' she says. She's fine with her own cheaper set.
Living with a chef is all about balance, she says. 'Barry works 10 or 12 hours a day in the restaurant so I don't expect him to come home and start scrubbing. You marry a chef – you just need to be real.'
'She says I'm always in the way'
Dave Murphy on Jess Murphy, executive chef at Kai
Dave Murphy and Jess Murphy of Kai in Galway. Photograph: Nathalie Marquez Courtney
Jess Murphy doesn't just cook at home – she takes over. She occupies the kitchen like it's a war zone and the utensils are under siege. She may run one of Ireland's best kitchens, but at home, she leaves a trail like a one-woman catering bomb.
Jess uses every pot in the kitchen. Dave washes them. He's been a kitchen porter for 25 years. He does the chef whites – washed, dried, folded. He cooks breakfast. He makes jacket potatoes and beans. He also knows when to quietly exit the kitchen.
He's not allowed to help. 'She says I'm always in the way.' So he loiters. Offers moral support. Holds a peeler if asked. The knives are completely off-limits. There are two racks – serious stuff, including a pair of Fingal Fergusons and a Damascus steel blade he once dared to wash after a glass of wine or two. He sliced his finger open. Lesson learned. He hasn't touched it since.
When Jess cooks at home, it's not just dinner – it's a continuation of service. There are no shortcuts, no half-measures, and certainly no recipes. The pantry is rammed with jars that have long since lost their labels, yuzu paste, fermented black bean sauce, and a rotating cast of odd condiments picked up over the years. One night it's lasagne. The next, donburi. Or maybe she's in the kitchen for hours making bagels from scratch.
He doesn't complain. This is the rhythm of their life – Kai by day, chaos by night. Jess doesn't let up just because she's off duty. She never really is. 'There are definitely perks to being married to a chef,' Dave says. 'Jess could be doing a photo shoot at home and I could be eating a turkey and ham dinner in August.'
'It all works out,' he says. Or, as he puts it: 'I wash the knives, I shut up, and I eat well.'
'She cooks, I do the dishes'
Arielle Agusto on Daniela Dullius, sous chef at Mae
Daniela Dullius and Arielle Agusto. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni
She may be married to a chef, but most nights, it's Agusto at the stove. She makes enough for both of them – so there's food ready when Dani gets home late from the restaurant. Her go-to is a curry she learned how to make from an Indian colleague.
When Dullius is off, the energy shifts. She might cook two or three times a week. And when she does, she goes all in. They're both from Brazil, but left in their early 20s. Now, in their 30s and living in Dublin, dinner is a mix of Brazilian staples, the food they grew up with, and things picked up along the way, in the US and Ireland.
'She likes to do it all herself,' says Agusto. 'She just says, 'I got it.' I'll occasionally help. I didn't work as a professional chef like her, but I did work in kitchens before. So sometimes I'll cut something, you know, to contribute somehow.'
Agusto says Dullius is a tidy chef, who cleans as she goes and the mess is minimal. But she doesn't stick around. 'Whatever she cooks, I do the dishes. We don't have a dishwasher, so it's me. I am the dishwasher.'
And then there are the nights where none of it happens. When Dullius walks in the door, drops her bag, and doesn't want to look at a pan. That's when the takeaway routine kicks in. Deliveroo on speed dial – spice bags, Chinese, Indian – anything that shows up fast and doesn't require effort.
'I am the kitchen porter'
Ciara Donnelly on Eric Matthews, executive chef and co-owner of Kicky's
Ciara Donnelly and Eric Matthews. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
'He told me early on, 'I'm going to cook for you because it's just going to taste better,'' says Ciara Donnelly. Her mother, a former chef, was delighted. 'You'll never have to cook again.' And she was right – Donnelly hasn't lifted a spatula since.
What she does lift is every pot in the kitchen. 'He forgets he doesn't have a kitchen porter – I am the kitchen porter.' He trashes the place, then gets annoyed it's messy. 'He's militant at work, clean-as-you-go. But at home it's mess everywhere and he's the one who made it.'
Technology winds him up. He hates induction hobs. 'He just can't use them.' Same goes for ovens, especially when he's baking. 'If something's not right, it's always, 'It's not me – it's the oven.''
He's particular. Very. If she buys dried herbs, she's in trouble. 'He's all about fresh, fresh, fresh. We go foraging for wild garlic. Normal people go to the shop.'
There are no tantrums, but he does need total control. 'Even if it's just a Sunday roast, he becomes the most important person in the room. You just get out of the way.'
He's made her eat some questionable things. 'Sea urchin pasta – neither of us liked it.' She's drawn the line at kangaroo, which Eric's had on his travels. 'I'm not fussy, but I don't want to be freaked out.' Once he brought home live spider crabs, then left to get ingredients. 'They tried to escape while I was on a team call.'
When he cooks, it's slow stuff – roasts, ragù, Thai. 'Things he doesn't make at work.' Sometimes he preps the sauce at the restaurant and brings it home. If he's too tired, they order takeaway from Sam Sab Thai.
It's a relaxed dinner. 'We eat in front of the TV. We talk to people all day. We just want to sit down.'
'I clean as she goes. It's a full-time job'
Michael Giolla Mhuire on Gráinne Mullins, pastry chef and owner of Grá Chocolates
Gráinne Mullins and Michael Giolla Mhuire
'She wants to control the entire kitchen, everything that's going on,' says Giolla Mhuire. 'If I try to get involved too much or suggest something – like how she's cooking a steak or charring broccoli – I'm told to go sit in the livingroom.'
This isn't a one-off performance – it's every night. 'She rings me every morning on the way to work to ask what cuisine I fancy. Asian? Right. She'll spend all day thinking about it. Maybe pop into the Asian store on her lunch break. It could be noodles. Duck and gratin. Sweet and sour with rice. Lentil curry with home-made chutney, coriander, yoghurt sauce – and she bakes the naan herself.'
He loves it. But sometimes he just wants goujons and chips. 'She's like, 'No. That's unhealthy.''
Takeaway? Doesn't happen. 'I'm from the city – I love a Chinese, a proper Indian. If she's away on a work trip, I go all out. Six dishes. She says, 'But Mikey, mine would be nicer.' And I'm like, 'I want it in a silver foil container, in a brown paper bag, and I want to eat it on the couch.''
There are no shortcuts. 'It's extravagant. The amount of food she buys, the quality, the prep. All of it from scratch. Honestly, it's like being in a fine dining restaurant every night. Sometimes it's too much – because we never get to sit down. She's still cooking.'
And it's not just the food. It's the mess. 'The amount of utensils, jars, sauces, condiments, microplanes – it's all over the place. I clean as she goes, constantly. It's a full-time job. I'm the KP. Just not officially.'
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FeliSpeaks: Life as a ‘black, Irish, queer culchie'

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Olusanya flips the atmosphere into a moment of unexpected lightness, 'Do you know what? The Laya Healthcare ad helped!' Laughter fills the empty theatre. 'Do you know how cool it is when you're on billboards? They get over the gay stuff quick!' In late 2021, Olusanya appeared in a campaign for the health insurance company, bringing their image and words on to television screens and billboards across Ireland. I suggest that this feels like a quintessentially Irish experience, but perhaps one more associated with another time. Olusanya nods, connecting the social attitudes of older generation white Irish people to first generation Nigerian-Irish. 'I don't like saying this, but that's how far away we are in terms of where we should be. I'm not saying white Irish Ireland has it all figured out, but in terms of the queer thing? It just feels like the story is a 1980s Irish experience. It feels like a time-travelling experience. [ Taylor Tomlinson at 3Arena review: more personal, more vulnerable but few surprises Opens in new window ] 'When immigrant black people come here and they make black Irish children, they're not expecting the assimilation that we experience. My parents and their peers came purely out of survival – 'at least you're going to have a fighting chance'. When people come from a survival mentality and you're trying to operate from a thriving mentality, they're terrified. Because even though they do want you to thrive, they don't know what that looks like. And so there is this push and pull between: 'I want you to be better and that's why I brought you here,' versus, 'What better looks like is really confusing and alienating for me as the mother or father or family that brought you here.'' This can cause, Olusanya believes, a 'disconnect' between some black youth in Ireland, and their parents and older relatives. 'It's either thrive and evolve, or we just end up replicating our parents. So that 1980s connection is so interesting. There's half of us who are like, 'F**k it, I'm going to take this opportunity to thrive beyond the economic.' Because, no word of a lie, black Irish people my age? Disgustingly equipped and educated. They have masters degrees for no reason, bruv! What, to work in a Centra? Relax!' The Centra line is obviously a joke. 'They're taking over Google! What's going on?! Educated to s**t. Lawyers, medical doctors. We're not playing it small, because we're not allowed to. We're not allowed to play it small, because survival involves going all the way up here,' Olusanya raises their hand. 'But that's economic survival.' The social and spiritual aspect, they say, is another thing. Felicia Olusanya describes Octopus Children as a 'choreopoem', in which multiple artistic disciplines combine. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill I wonder whether the reaction Olusanya experienced to them being queer was also about a fear of another layer of oppression to contend with in a racist society. The conversations Olusanya had with family and others, they say, were 'not about hate, it's about fear. They were terrified, because they've built these communities and structures that incubate them safely. When you pop out of it for work, to socialise, you can still come back home. Even if I get racist experiences at work, there's a whole community that have my back I can come back to, so that is a temporary experience. That's how I think the older generation view it. Whereas if you're then gay, it's not the thing that's going to break you out 'there' in the white Irish world, but it will,' - or may - 'in the home that we've all built that's supposed to support you no matter what.' 'I want us to be able to have our communities, grow our communities, and not be caged by our communities, because that's also what's happening when people come from a space of survival, psychologically. I can't wait for a couple of generations where our people feel completely safe, that there isn't a demarcation. Sociologically and psychologically we all do this: you're drawn to people who are more like you, that's normal, so you'll always have those type of communities anyway. I'm not saying we need to dismantle our safety in our community in order to integrate. That's not what I'm asking for. But what I am saying, is to free ourselves from the limitations that the survival of our communities has brought. And one of those limitations,' Olusanya says, is a feeling 'that you can't be queer. Especially not out loud.' They have just returned from two years in Brussels, a place Olusanya went to out of a sense of adventure and 'safety, because it felt like the country held me well - I visited several parts of of Belgium before settling in Brussels - and I didn't want to go to London especially, very Dublin 2.0 vibes.' Living there, they were exposed to 'a type of freedom and blackness that I had never seen before or experienced', as well as new forms of dance and jazz. Now, Olusanya is ready for the next phase. They hope what Octopus Children does is make people 'one, feel visible in multiple ways, per tentacle. But two, that it frees us from the limitation of our own community – seeing a 'me'. I've come to accept – and no ego s**t – you just end up being a pioneer. You don't want to be a public figure, you don't want to be the person people look up to. But if you're going to do something different, you're going to end up being that ... With this show, I want to show my community – black Irish people – and the white Irish community, that this weird layered person-being can be visible, and it's completely okay. Visible and celebrated. I want black Irish girls, or non-binary people, or gays, to be like, 'Ahh! That's a bit of me!' and not feel like there's no representation. I hate the word representation, but it's so f***ing important. But I don't want to be the only one. I want to be able to make Octopus Children so octopus children can find it, so there can be a community of us, so we're very visible, very loud.'

The six ages of David Clifford – a mixture of Kerry greats that strikes fear into defenders across the land
The six ages of David Clifford – a mixture of Kerry greats that strikes fear into defenders across the land

Irish Independent

time5 hours ago

  • Irish Independent

The six ages of David Clifford – a mixture of Kerry greats that strikes fear into defenders across the land

Talisman is the perfect amalgam of several legendary Kingdom forwards, namely John Egan, 'Bomber' Liston, Pat Spillane, Maurice Fitzgerald, Mike Frank Russell and Colm Cooper Rarely has an All-Ireland final generated such a thrill of expectancy; rarely has football's annual showpiece elicited such wavering uncertainty about the outcome. Everyone has a hunch. Nobody, deep down, has a clue.

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