Gráinne O’Keefe Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You're listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine, and each week I talk to the most interesting women and culinary creatives in and around the world of food.
Today's guest is Gráinne O'Keefe, Chef/Owner of Mae Restaurant in Dublin. Gráinne's restaurant highlights both the gorgeous produce available across Ireland, and the work of its talented artisans, from glassblowers to knife makers. Mae is widely regarded as one of the best restaurants in all of Ireland. Our friend, Gráinne has many talents. She is also a food columnist for The Irish Times. She was in town for a special Kerrygold luncheon, and some sightseeing, and restaurant hopping. She and I first met in Dublin back in 2019 on a Kerrygold trip, so I was thrilled to reconnect and invite her to join me on the show today. Side note, I cannot wait to go back to Ireland. It is the most beautiful country, and we would love to do a Cherry Bombe event there one day. Stay tuned for my chat with one of Ireland's top culinary talents.
Some housekeeping, make sure you sign up for the Cherry Bombe newsletter over at cherrybombe.com. We have a lot of exciting stuff coming up, and you do not want to miss out new issues, special events, Jubilee 2024, and podcast news, speaking of which, make sure you check out our Radio Cherry Bombe, Hey Hey, L.A. miniseries presented by Square. I was in L.A. recently, and interviewed three awesome women leaving their mark on the culinary scene there. My first interview dropped last week with Bricia Lopez, owner of the restaurant Guelaguetza, and author of the brand new cookbook Asada. New episodes are dropping on Wednesdays for the next few weeks, so be sure to give a listen.
Now let's check in with today's guest. Gráinne, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Thank you so much. It's so nice to be here and it's so cool to just be in New York. It really is a cool city.
Kerry Diamond:
I would imagine for a chef, it's a lot of fun, to come to New York City.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
It's overwhelming how much there is to do. Especially coming from Ireland, we have three or four, 2 Michelin Star restaurants. We've got a good few Michelin Star restaurants and we have so many amazing restaurants, regardless of the guide, but you come to New York and there is just good stuff everywhere.
Kerry Diamond:
We talk about New York all the time. We want to talk about Ireland today. Why don't we start with you and your story, because you got into cooking, kind of young, in an interesting way. I was reading something about a mobile library-
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
... at your school. Why don't you set the picture for us?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
When I grew up ... Gosh, I'm only 31, but I feel like, when I talk about when I was younger that, I feel old because of the ... It's true though, the internet wasn't really a thing. It didn't really exist back then, and we didn't have mobile phones. I got my first Nokia 3310 when I was, I'd say about 12 or 13. When I was younger, we used to have a little mobile library that came to the school because there wasn't a library in this school. You're talking, there's probably only 200 kids in this school.
The mobile library would come on Thursdays, and it would be sitting outside the school. I'd go into it, and you'd go in, you'd pick your book, and then they'd put a stamp in it, and then you'd bring it back the next week. I used to get the cookbooks, and I used to go home and read them. Then I'd watch Hell's Kitchen on TV, all these shows where it's chefs shouting at other people, and people cooking. I was like, "I want to do that. That looks fun."
Kerry Diamond:
Which part, the cooking or the shouting at people?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
The cooking. Definitely, the cooking. I didn't grow up with a lot. I didn't come from a family that went to restaurants all the time. I didn't go to a restaurant until I was actually in college, not including going to pubs and having chicken nuggets and chips. I did that. I was infatuated with the food that I saw on TV, and I wanted to know what it tasted like. I looked at my situation and myself and said, "I probably will never be able to afford to eat this kind of food unless I learn how to make it." So I said, "I'll do that."
In Ireland, it's different than in America. You don't major in something, in school. I'm not really sure 100% how it works here, but basically in Ireland it's like, everyone's taught the exact same thing. You can pick between biology, physics and the other one. What's the other one?
Kerry Diamond:
I don't know. English?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Biology, physics, and the other science.
Kerry Diamond:
Literature? Oh, the other science.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Biology, physics, and ...
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I don't know.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Oh, my God. I-
Kerry Diamond:
You're asking the wrong girl. Sorry.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Yeah. So, you pick one of them, and you do it. Then, I did really well in English. I loved English. I did go through a phase and wanted to be a journalist, but food just took over. I just applied directly to one of the culinary colleges. There's only really one in Dublin. There's a couple more now, but at the time there was only one. I had no idea what I was doing or what was going on, but I applied. I went for an interview and I got in. It was bizarre. I moved out. I got a job in a restaurant. I just started working in town. In Dublin, there's the city center and then there's the suburbs, and there's not really much else in between. In the suburbs, there'll be their own little towns. The city center, there's only one.
I got a job in a restaurant there. It was an Italian restaurant. When I say, I did not know what was going on at all. One of my most vivid memories of when I started there was, one of these Italian chefs, they were just shouting in Italian all the time. I don't speak Italian, and I was the only girl in the kitchen, and I was 17. He was like, "Go get me a celeriac from the fridge." I was like, "Oh, God, they're going to find out that I don't know anything." I was 17. Of course, I didn't, but I was too afraid to tell anyone that I didn't know what was going on. So I was like, "Okay. Think, Gráinne, think."
I went into the fridge and I was like, "What do I know, isn't a celeriac?" There was two things I picked up, and it was celeriac and horseradish. I was like, "Right. I have a plan." I'm like, I got the ones out to the bench and the chef was like, "What are you doing with the horseradish?" I was like, "Oh, this is for something else, and here's your celeriac." I was like, "Oh, phew." It was just this weird thing of, even when I was 17, instead of feeling comfortable enough to learn from these chefs, I felt like my initial was, "I have to show them that I know what I'm doing, and I know everything."
Kerry Diamond:
This is because you were raised on Gordon Ramsey.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Exactly. Also, I have three older brothers, and I just grew up quite tough. "I don't need any help, and I'm fine." I, kind of raised myself, in a way, and also my sister raised me a lot. Then when I got to going in a really male-dominated environment, my natural instinct was to tense up. I'm like, "I don't need you to show me." I think I grew out of that, a little bit and I realized you can't learn everything yourself through going to the mobile library. Things were moving a little bit now. We got internet on our phones.
Then I went to work in The Merrion Hotel. I was in Il Segreto for a year. It's long gone now. That was in the time when people still paid 32 euro for a plate of buffalo mozzarella or something like ... It's insane. Then I went to work in The Merrion. The Merrion is a five star hotel in Dublin. It's one of the most prestigious hotels in the country. It's beautiful. It is really beautiful. I remember the day I started there. They bring you around the hotel and they say, "This is the penthouse. This costs 3,000 euro a night," or something. I was just standing in this room and I was like, "I'll never be able, to afford to stay in this hotel." I was there for two years and I learned so much there. That was different. That was a different environment.
This is, "We're going to teach you here. You don't know anything." I was relieved. I was like, "That's good." There was more women as well. There was no women in the job before that. It was different. It was really intense though. Super intense, but I learned so much about speed, how to manage different areas. I matured a lot while I was there, in terms of being able to manage other people.
Then I was there for two years, and I left and I went to a restaurant called Pichet. Pichet, at the time was the restaurant. They're really trendy. Everyone loved it. It's where all the industry people went on their days off. Stephen Gibson was the head chef there, and he was brilliant. He had this dish on. It was a crispy hen's egg, so it was hen's egg that was poached and then deep-fried in breadcrumbs, and people lost their minds over it. It's beautiful, and it was really beautiful food, really beautiful cooking.
That was really where I started to come into my own. I adapted a lot of my style from that. His food was always really tasty, good ingredients. Simple to a point, but you would look at it and think it's simple, but then there's a lot of work going on behind it, and seasonal. That was when I really realized what food meant to me, and what it could be. I decided I'm only going to stay in restaurants. I'm never going to go into hotels. I'm never going to cook breakfast in my life ever again. Then I was poaching all these eggs with the hen egg dish in Pichet and I was like, "This is the same."
Kerry Diamond:
You can't get away from it.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
You can't get away.
Kerry Diamond:
It wasn't culinary school, but you did study culinary in college, right?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Yeah. Oh, so culinary school is college. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Got it.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Yeah. Ireland college is like university here, I think. We'd have ... School is secondary. So, we have primary school and secondary school, whereas I think you have, high school is secondary school. Then you go into college, which is university.
Kerry Diamond:
So, you did that before you went to the Italian restaurant, or after?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
During.
Kerry Diamond:
In the Italian restaurant while you were in college.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
I was working full-time in the restaurant and I was full-time in college. I had to pay my rent in town, so I had to do it. I remember, actually one of my first head chef ... One of my lecturers in college was giving me, because when I was going in, I was wrecked. I was working until 1:00 in the morning. I was broke. I had to walk home, back to my houseshare, and then go into college next morning.
I was so tired, and I probably didn't really try that much in college. I was tired. I think my lecturer was just like, "Oh, she's just out all the time." You know what? There's always that one student in class who's just not great. He'd always put me with that student when we were pairing up. Then we have an event, where you go and cook, and you invite people in. I invited my head chef, and it's your turn to cook in the college. I remember, he was there and the tutor was there, and I think the tutor said ... He was like, "Oh God, she's great, but she's always coming in late or she's always leaving early."
He was like, "Well, yeah, she has a full-time job. She works in the restaurant. You should probably be a bit nicer to her." He was like, "Oh, God. Now I feel bad." So, it got a bit better after that.
Kerry Diamond:
Good.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
But that was only a two-year course and then I graduated from that. I think I learned a lot more just working, than I did in college. I know the course has evolved a lot since then. I'd imagine it's probably a lot more adapted to current culinary trends, but I'm not sure because it's been, I think ... I am 31 now. I was 17 when I went there. It's a long time ago for me, in terms of everything that's happened in between.
Kerry Diamond:
You're one of their big success stories now.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Yeah. Well, I'd hope so. I'm sure they probably still look at me and they're like, "Oh, you're one. She was always so cheeky."
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about the culinary scene in Ireland, because I think ... I'm Irish, so I can say this. I think in America, when you hear Irish culinary scene, folks are like, "What? There's a culinary scene over in Ireland?"
Gráinne O'Keefe:
It's something that, if you haven't been to Ireland, or you're not interested in food scenes, in general, you wouldn't really know how good it is. It's very, very good and it's constantly getting better.
Kerry Diamond:
Also, because for some of our families who came here during the famine, the whole idea of a food scene is just ... Even though that was over 100 years ago plus, the idea of a food scene over there is so unfathomable.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
It is. Even for my grandparents' generation, they grew up in Leitrim, which is West Coast of Ireland. There's not much there. It's beautiful, but there's not much there. My grandparents were farmers, so they grew their own food, they raised their own cattle. There wasn't this idea of going to a restaurant and paying someone to make food for you. To them, that's insane. Why would you do that?
It's only in the past two generations that we've really evolved past that. This generation, I'd say is probably the first where it's actually on par with the rest of the world in terms of who we have cooking and what they're doing over there, because it's so good. It used to be a few years ago, you'd have to go to London, or Paris, or New York to go to a really good restaurant, but now we have Aimsir. Aimsir is beautiful.
Jordan Bailey, they got two stars a few months after opening, and I think they broke a record doing that. That's in Kildare. It's just so random. You don't feel like you're in Ireland. I know that probably feeds into the whole, "This can't be in Ireland because it's too good," but I don't mean it in that way. It's just, there's something about Aimsir that, they started doing something that had never been done in Ireland before, in that they brought the Scandinavian super fine dining to Ireland. We have Guilbaud, which is a 2 Michelin Star. Guilbaud's is French though, and they've had two Michelin Stars forever. Guilbaud's is beautiful and it's refined, but Aimsir is so new.
Well, it's just a turning point, and also just said, "This can work here." I think Jordan and Majken and their whole thing is, your produce is so amazing in this country that, it's on the same level as anywhere else.
Kerry Diamond:
It's remarkable, whether it's the seafood and even the seaweed, which is now such a big part of everything, to what they're growing on the farms, and the dairy, and the cheeses. It's just, you can go on and on about Irish produce today.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
It's insane. I said this when I was in Parcella's yesterday. I said to the chef. He was saying, "Have you ever had Amish butter?" I was like, "Amish, are they the people that don't have TVs and stuff, and they probably churn their own?" He was like, "Yeah. It's the best butter in the world." I was like, "No, no, no, no." I was like, "You're wrong. Irish butter is the best butter in the world." Then the other chef was like, "Well, what makes it so special?" I was like, "Well, the things with grass on them, the fields where animals eat stuff, we have them everywhere, and there's loads of it. They're grazing constantly, outside."
Grass-fed is a big call-out in other countries for, "Our beef is grass-fed. Our butter comes from grass-fed cows," where in Ireland, it's normal. That's just how it's done over there. It is true, the way we rear cattle, the way we make cheese, it is unique because the soil is unique, the weather is unique. Yeah, it rains a lot, but that's good for the grass and it's good for the cows, and it's not great for the tourists, but then they buy the butter and bring it back home. We do, we have-
Kerry Diamond:
If they can sneak it into their suitcases.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
If they can sneak it in.
Kerry Diamond:
I will say, one of my biggest takeaways, aside from how fabulous all the food was, over in Ireland was, you give space to cows that, Americans would give to buildings.
There was this one farm we went to. I'm so sorry, I can't remember the farmer's name, but it was on a cliff, overlooking the most beautiful body of water. That was where the cows got to graze. I was like, "Oh, my God. If this was America, they would've leveled this and put a condo or a resort there, not a few dozen cows."
Gráinne O'Keefe:
That's why it's such a prime export for Ireland, and that's why it's so revered in places, like the States. The way, in restaurants you would have caviar from France, or lamb from Lozère, or pigeon from Anjou, it's like beef from Ireland. You can't really beat it. Obviously, Wagyu is superb, but if you were to give me a choice between A5 Wagyu steak and a grass-fed, dry-aged steak from Ireland, I'd choose the grass-fed, 100% of the time. I'd be looking at the Wagyu and I'd be thinking about it, but I'd always pick the Irish one because there's something really special about it. I feel like it's the same with butter and Irish butter. You can taste the difference, you can.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Cherry Bombe is participating in Taste of Santa Barbara, the week-long culinary celebration taking place May 15th through 21st. We'll be at Mattei's Tavern in Los Olivos on Saturday, May 20th for a special networking event and wine tasting. Tickets are $100, and include all food and drink, a copy of the new issue of Cherry Bombe Magazine, and a copy of the delicious new mystery novel, Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge. Head to cherrybombe.com or sbce.events for tickets and more information. We'll put those links in our show notes. We would love to see you at Taste of Santa Barbara.
Now back to our guest.I want to go back to your career. When did you finally get your first head chef gig?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
I left Pichet. I was there for four years, and while I was there, I left as this Senior Sous Chef. I was in charge, I think at the time it was 11 people on the roster. I was 23, I think, 24. I was like, "It's time to move on." I think someone turned around to me one day and was like, "Oh, you're a lifer." A lifer, as in you'll never leave here. I was like, "Oh, okay. Watch me." So I did, and then I left. I went to Madrid for two weeks and I was like, "Oh, I might move to Madrid. I don't speak Spanish, but I want to do something new." Then I just did this thing that I'd never done in my life.
I was always super organized, super focused, and I was like, "I'm going to be this and this when I'm this age, and this age." Then I left Pichet, and I didn't know what I was doing. I was like, "Oh-"
Kerry Diamond:
So you left Pichet without a job?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
I left without a job. I, kind of went through a quarter-life crisis. I was like, "What am I doing with my life? Is this it? Am I just going to work in kitchens, and work all the time, and not have any goals?" So, I left and I was like, "I need to figure this out." Then I went to work in a restaurant called Bastible. A friend of mine worked there, and he was the head chef there at the time. He said to me, "Gráinne, you're being a bit of a waster now. Come on. Come into work. Come work for free for a week just so you can do something because you're going out and spending all your money, eating. You're having pints and stuff on Tuesdays. Come on."
I was like, "All right. Okay." So I went into Bastible, and then was there for a week. The week I was there, I think he planned this. Brendan, if you're listening, I know you did this on purpose. He rostered me in for a week, where him and his friend were off for a wedding. I wasn't just in to have a little look around. I was on the main core section, and the oven had broken, and it was busy, and it was a really good restaurant as well. After the week, the owner turned around to me and said, "What, do you want a job here?" I was like, "Ah, sure. I may as well. I'm not doing anything else."
At the time, I was actually in the process of getting BuJo started as well. That was all happening at the same time. BuJo is a burger restaurant in Dublin. I was approached when I was in Pichet by a man who said, "Would you like to help me open up a burger restaurant?" Being a little 24-year-old chef who thought I was everything, I was like, "Ugh, no. Burgers, I don't think so." He was like, "Okay, can I just have an hour of your time? I'll just explain to you what I mean." I was like, "Okay."
We sat down, we went to a restaurant, and he was just like, gave me his business plan and he said, "This isn't just a burger restaurant. This is going to be a burger restaurant based on your perfect burger. This will be ..." To a chef, it's like, "Really? This'll be an homage to what I think is good? Okay." It's like feeding into the ego.
What really sold it was, he said, "You will go and meet every single supplier that we have. You will go to every farm. We're going to bring you to every farm. You're going to go to the abattoir, you're going to meet the cows, you're going to meet the farmers who make the ice cream. You're going to pick the grass that the cows eat in Wexford. You're going to meet food technologists, food scientists, and you're going to build the perfect burger blend. You're going to go to potato farms, you're going to try every variety there is. You're going to try every cooking oil there is, and you're going to tell us which one is best, and we're going to use that."
I got paid to eat burgers and come up with burgers. That sounds fun until you're on your 500th burger in two weeks and you're like, "I can't take it anymore."
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, so maybe the farm part was the fun part?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
They approached me two years before they even had the site. So, they just had a dream and a vision, and as well in it, they said, "And we want to be sustainable." I think now ... So, this is going back. It must be like seven years ago. This, at the time wasn't actually buzzy. It wasn't trendy. It wasn't in.
The owners have children. It's two owners, they're business partners, and they have children. They said, "What do we want to do for our kids? We want to do something good, and we want to do it in a good way for them." They're really genuine. They're super honest about what they're doing in BuJo. That's what drew me in. That was it. I was like, "Okay. No, this is actually interesting. You know what? I think this is something that I do really want to be a part of."
Kerry Diamond:
You were so young. What did they see in you?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
I was young, but at the time I was, kind of up and coming. That I would've been in quite a few articles. I think I was on TV at the time. I think I had a show. Not my own show, but I was on a cooking show or something. Can't remember my own life. I have the worst memory. Why they asked to meet me was because they have a friend who is a butcher, John Stone. The butcher for John Stone said, "You should contact this chef. She's really, really good. I've been into Pichet. I've tried her food." He's like, "She's brilliant." They said, "Okay, that's enough for us."
I'd say, they did their work. You assume, "Oh, people, probably just heard about me and came to meet me." Then you get to know them and you're like, "No, he did his work." I'd say, he knew more about me than I did.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you still affiliated with them?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Yes. Yep.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
I'm still the Culinary Director of BuJo. For two years, I built up the blend. It was, six months of it was full-time, and that was mainly doing all the actual recipes, but then also the sustainability policy. So, that was huge. That actually, it's an ongoing, rolling document.
I did the initial ... I created a sustainability policy, which we submitted to a organization called The Sustainable Restaurant Association, which is based in London. They have a rating system from one to three. One star is good, three star is the highest you can get. We got our rating just as we opened, and we got a three-star rating.
Kerry Diamond:
Congratulations.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Thank you so much. That was insane, because the amount of work that went into it. I remember, they called us and said, "You got a three-star rating." I was like, "This means so much."
Kerry Diamond:
How many locations?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Currently, we have two. There is one in Sandymount and there's one in Terenure. It's the only burger-focused restaurant in the U.K. and Ireland to have a three-star rating from the SRA. We're super proud of it and we have to constantly update it because it's reevaluated every two years. So, we've held onto it all the way through since.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, when I'm back, I'm going to go have a burger-
Gráinne O'Keefe:
It's right on the beach.
Kerry Diamond:
... a cheeseburger.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Well, it's not right on the beach. It's a five-minute walk from Sandymount Strand and it's a 10-minute walk from Mae Restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, well, which we're going to talk about now because I don't want us to run out of time without talking about Mae, because it's so special. I absolutely cannot wait to go visit. It wasn't open when I was there in 2019.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Oh, yeah. So, we-
Kerry Diamond:
You were cooking somewhere else.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
We opened ... After Bastible, the Bastible owners were opening up a second restaurant and they said, "Will you go be the head chef there," and I said yes. I was there for three and a half years. That was when I mainly focused on grilling, barbecuing, very steak-heavy. It went really well. It was quite successful, but then pandemic hit and I had another one of those ... I think I just have them every few years now, just one of those breakdowns of, "What am I doing with my life?" At the time, I was 29 and I was like, "I need to do something."
This lady had come into the job I was in. We were doing meal kits. We were packing up soup into boxes and selling it to people instead of actually working in a restaurant. This lady, oh, she rang on the phone and she said, "Can I speak to Gráinne?" I said, "It's me." She said, "Oh, I have this wine shop in Ballsbridge and I'd love for you to come in, and maybe take over the room upstairs and open a restaurant." I was like, "Ha ha. Okay, thanks and all." I was like, "Yeah, maybe." Then I just hung up.
I was a lot nicer than that. I was like, "Thank you so much, but yeah, right, as if I would open up my own restaurant. I'm broke." Then about an hour later, she dropped into the restaurant and she left a bag with the manager and she said, "Can you give that to Gráinne, please, and just tell her it's from Tanya?" Then he gave it to me and he was like, "I don't know what it is." I think it was a bottle of champagne, and these beautiful chocolate almonds. I was like, "Oh, I don't know who this lady is, but she knows me."
I went home, and I was talking to my housemates, and we opened the champagne, we're eating the almonds, and they were like, "Oh, my God. Gráinne, are you joking? She asked you to open a restaurant and you said no?" I was like, "Ah, yeah. Do you know what ..." Then I just had a bad month or two.
I had a bad month or two. I was getting sick of the meal because the restaurant was reopening here, but it's like, you have to stand four meters apart from each other and you can only eat two chips, and then you have to leave and come back and order a bottle. It was just all these restrictions and stuff. I was just like, "Nah, I'm out. I'm done." I rang Tanya and I said, "Hey, remember you said I could open a restaurant? Is that still an option?" She was like, "Yep, come on in. Come have a meeting."
Kerry Diamond:
Had you dreamed of having your own restaurant at that point?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
No. Do you know, I've always dreamed of it, but it's something I thought I'd never be able to afford to do that. I was just like, "No, it's just not something that I'll be able to do until I'm 40. Even then, I'll have to save," because chefs, we might make money, but not enough to open a restaurant. That's a huge amount. So, this was perfect. The restaurant already existed. So I went in, and they have this wine shop in Ballsbridge. It's called the French Paradox. It is beautiful. Tanya's from Ireland, her husband, Pierre is from Cognac, and then they have three sons and a daughter. Their daughter is in Toronto. Then two sons run the wine shop and then the other son works in sales.
The wine shop is stunning. It's beautiful. They directly import from vineyards in France. They have really good connections and relationships with all the vineyard people. They just have this really intimate, beautiful shop. Then on the second floor, they were doing food and charcuterie. They were, kind of doing a restaurant, but they were done with it then. They said, "We don't want to operate food anymore. We want to have someone in this room. We want you to rent this room, basically."
Long story short, I did. Also, her two sons were in there on that day. I remember, Tanya's the coolest person I've ever met. She's so cool. She's the mum everyone wants to have. We had this meeting, and after about an hour she's like, "Great, okay. So, we'll have paperwork drawn up and I'll give you a call during the week." I was like, "Wait, what?"
Kerry Diamond:
Had you said yes?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
She just laughed. I looked around at her two sons and I was like ... I started getting ... My heart was going ... I was like, "Did I say yes? I didn't realize." They were like, "Oh, no. That's Tanya."
Kerry Diamond:
So, you were given carte blanche?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Already, the room is beautiful. I know I'm biased because I have the restaurant there, but when I went in I was like, "This place is stunning. How have I never even been in here before?" It's only around the corner from BuJo as well. Then it's actually, there's a whole other different, really nice story behind this about how me and my boyfriend got together.
Basically, in the middle of lockdown, I was leaving BuJo and it was a really sunny day. I was like, "I'm going to walk a different way and get lost." It's hard to get lost in Dublin, but I can do it because I have a really bad sense of direction. I came across the wine shop, and Patrick, who is my boyfriend, was standing in the window at a wine shop. They were selling wine through a hatch. He was there. He is very handsome. Very handsome, very tall, very French. I walked up and I was like, "Oh, hello? Who's this-"
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, did you say very French?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, he's French?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Well, his family... He's half French.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, he's got a ... The Irish accent threw me off.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
But he was born in Singapore. Yeah. He's just doing it because he's in New York. I'm joking. Sorry, Patrick. I was like, "Oh, I'd like a bottle of something sparkly, please." He sold me a bottle of Crémant. I was just chatting to him and I was like, "Can I take a photo of your shop? It's so beautiful." He was standing out and I was like ... He was like, "Oh, do you want me to stand out of the way?" I was like, "No, no, no. You look great." I think he looked lovely. He was like ... He says that to me now, sometimes, "You look lovely."
So, I took a photo of him, and then that was it. I think I mentioned it, my story in Instagram or something, the shop. Then, oh, I was chatting to him about BuJo and stuff. Then, I never really thought much about that. Then I remember, I went back. I was opening a restaurant there.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, so wait. So, all this happened before his mom called you-
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
... about Mae.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
So, what actually had happened is, I think he was a little bit, kind of like, "Who is she? Who is that woman?"
Kerry Diamond:
Love at first Crémant.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Love at first Crémant. I think he was looking me up and stuff. Then at the time, I was on a TV show called Beyond the Menu. His mom watched it, and I think he was being like, "God, she's amazing." He didn't even watch it. I don't even think he still has, but I think he ... I'm not sure how it happened. It's all so murky details.
Basically, his mom was like, "She'd be a great person to have upstairs." Eventually, I was like, "Yes, I would love to open a restaurant here." I put all my little savings into it, and I put all my savings into getting handmade plates by a guy in Dublin 8, and these incredibly expensive, but beautiful wine glasses called Grassls from Austria, flown in. I remember his whole family, I think, just thought I was mental. No one knew what I was doing. I didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't tell anyone that. So I was just like, "Yeah. No, I know what I'm doing. I'm going to spend all my money on wine glasses and hope people come to drink wine out of them."
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us, what is Gráinne O'Keefe food? What is on the menu at Mae?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Okay, so it's a set menu. The restaurant's named after my grandmother. Mae was my grandmother. She passed away a few years ago. I came up with the name because I went home one day, and this is when I was back with the housemates. We're probably drinking more champagne, trying to come up with a name for the restaurant. Originally, we were thinking of something French because it's upstairs from French Paradox.
I was thinking L'Étage because upstairs. Some ... came up, and then I settled on a name. I was going to call it Chou-Chou, which means my little darling cabbage in French. Then I told someone about it, and we were laughing so hard because we just thought choo-choo, because there's a train station up the road. I was like, "No, I'm not going with that."
Then my grandfather passed away, and that was quite ... I was really close to my grandparents. They were a huge part of my childhood. It just started making me think about my grandmother as well. She was an incredible woman, like proper, strong, old-school Irish woman and her name was Mae. I said, "You know what? The only name that I'm ever not going to get sick of will be her name." That's where that came from.
Kerry Diamond:
That's beautiful.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
I think in Portuguese, it means mother, and in Chinese, Mae means beautiful. It's just a fitting name because it describes her perfectly. Then the food, I wanted it to be reminiscent of foods that I've loved cooking my whole life. Using really good-quality Irish ingredients is at the core of the menu, but it's a set menu. It's just an amalgamation of my different styles over the years, I suppose. Then, it's a tiny kitchen though, and it's a tiny room. Especially when Americans come in, they're like, "Oh, my God." The kitchen is not even as big as this studio. It's really small.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. If folks want to come, how do they make a reservation? How far in advance do they have to book it?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
We open the bookings month by month. It's not like a pretentious thing, it's just because we never know what's going to happen one month to the next. There might be a match day, there might be a game on down the road or something. So, we just always have to open month by month. You can go into Mae-
Kerry Diamond:
Are you saying they have to plan it around the soccer schedule?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Rugby and the Aviva. So, the Aviva states that, on match days there's 40,000 people walking down that road. So, you really have to ... We change the menu on those days because it gets loud, but they really go crack. Those days, they really go crack.
Kerry Diamond:
Does the menu change all the time?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
So, it's seasonal. We change it every couple of weeks, or we might just change one dish randomly just because one of us has an idea. Actually, at the moment as well, which is something that isn't on purpose, but just happened. It's all female chefs in the kitchen. Actually, no, Killian is still in the kitchen, but he's going to be leaving us in a month or so. Other than that, it's all females, which is-
Kerry Diamond:
You love that?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
It's nice, and you know what? It's super calm. That's the one thing everyone always says when they come in. It's like, "The kitchen is so calm." It's like, we telepathically communicate with each other.
Kerry Diamond:
It's different from how you started in that Italian kitchen.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
It is different than people shouting at me in Italian. Now it's like, we barely even speak in the kitchen. It's because everyone, they've all been there since the start. So, service is just so smooth all the time.
Even to be able to be here, I didn't think I'd ever be able to leave my own restaurant. I was like, "No, I have to do service all the time." The team is just so good at what they do, and the Sous Chef, Leticia is incredible. I trust her implicitly, to be able to run the kitchen while I'm not there.
Kerry Diamond:
Is there anything on the menu at Mae that, you don't take off?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
So the Apple Tarte Tatin is our big one. It's been on the menu since day one, and that's the one. We were open four days, the Michelin inspectors came in, and that was a big surprise. They put up a photo on their Twitter of the Apple Tarte Tatin, and also all the Irish hams. All the different kind of critics that were coming in were constantly talking about it.
So, it's cooked in Calvados, which is the secret to why it's so good. It's just really boozy, and toffee sauce. It's, obviously Irish apples in a puff pastry with some creme fraiche on top. So, I'm not a big dessert person, so for me it's perfect because it's got alcohol in it, it's got butter, it's salty, it's sweet. Creme fraiche is bitter, as well. So, there's that. Oh, also I didn't mention that I do a food column for The Irish Times.
Kerry Diamond:
I know you do. Yes. Your journalism dreams are coming true, a little bit.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
They did. Marie Claire Digby rang me and she said, "Gráinne, would you like to be a food columnist?" I was like, "Well, this is a dream come true," and it really was. I do it every Saturday.
Irish Times is one of the biggest, leading papers in the country. It's a huge deal for me and it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun, and it's something that ... Obviously, I won't be able to do a column forever. They're going to get someone else in eventually, but it's something that I'd-
Kerry Diamond:
That's so Irish of you, to think about the end before.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
It's so Irish. As soon as someone gives me good news, I'm like, "Oh, this is going to end real soon."
Kerry Diamond:
Well, this has to end real soon, which breaks my heart, but you know what that means. I just have to come over to Ireland and book a studio.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
You do. Well, I want to come back to ... I want to do a trip. I really want to go to the South America. I want to go to Texas, I want to eat gumbo, and I want to go to South Carolina and see people with cowboy hats.
Kerry Diamond:
Sounds like a TV show. Isn't there somebody over in Ireland who could turn this into a TV show for you and send you over here?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Or maybe someone in America.
Kerry Diamond:
Or maybe someone in America.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Would someone in America, please give me a TV show.
Kerry Diamond:
You have to go to California. The produce in California ... As gorgeous as Irish produce is, you have to go to California.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
I don't think I'm cool enough for California.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, we're going to do a quick speed round. One of your favorite books on food?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Oh, Etxebarri, the cookbook.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yeah.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Oh, or Setting to Table by Danny Meyer.
Kerry Diamond:
Best food movie.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Ratatouille.
Kerry Diamond:
Favorite kitchen tool.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Microplane.
Kerry Diamond:
One thing that's always in your fridge.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Cheese.
Kerry Diamond:
Favorite childhood food.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Corned beef sandwiches.
Kerry Diamond:
Snack food of choice.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Crisps.
Kerry Diamond:
Footwear of choice in the kitchen.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Birkenstocks, sponsor me.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yeah. You're a big Birkenstocks fan.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I've read that.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Although I have the ... I want to get a pair of Louis Vuitton Birks, do a mashup.
Kerry Diamond:
Any motto or mantra that gets you through the day?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Oh, God. I don't know. I suppose, be nice.
Kerry Diamond:
If you had to be stuck on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be, and why?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Martha Stewart. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Why Martha?
Gráinne O'Keefe:
Ah, she's just cool. Also, she's friends with Snoop Dogg, so we could just chill. Just chill. I just think ... Actually I'd love to meet Martha Stewart. I'm going to put that on my list. I'm going to put it into the universe of, "Next time I come back to New York, I want to meet Martha Stewart, and go for dinner with her and Snoop Dogg." Please, someone make that happen.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. We're manifesting that for you, Gráinne, and so many other things. I mean, you're so young. I'm just so excited to watch your career, and so happy for all your success. I know you've just got so many incredible things ahead of you.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
I hope so. In a few years' time, who knows? Maybe I'll own a restaurant in New York and then, sure, we can see each other all the time.
Kerry Diamond:
I would love that. I would love that.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
That'd be great. Thank you so much.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, Gráinne, thank you. You're the Bombe.
Gráinne O'Keefe:
It's been a pleasure.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Be sure to sign up for the Cherry Bombe newsletter over at cherrybombe.com, so you can stay on top of all Cherry Bombe happenings, podcasts, and events. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Our theme song is by the band, Tralala. Thank you to Joseph Hazan, Studio Engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producer is Catherine Baker and our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu. Thanks to you for listening. You're the Bombe.