She’s been wearing Birkenstocks - in and out of the kitchen - for years, but chef Gráinne O’Keefe is mildly put out that the footwear has now become a fashion statement. “I live in Birkenstocks because they are really good for your feet and for your back. Now they’re cool, but I had to go through years of getting teased about wearing them. My boyfriend’s always slagging me for wearing old-man shoes.”
Her boyfriend is Patrick Chapeau, son of the family who own the building in Ballsbridge where in the summer of 2021 she opened her restaurant, Mae, above the family’s French Paradox wine shop. She’s wearing the fur-lined luxury version of the German sandal when we meet to talk about her new weekly recipe column in The Irish Times Magazine (which starts this Saturday with three special eggy brunch dishes to cook over the long weekend), and it transpires that she is something of a luxury footwear collector, with Louis Vuitton and Jimmy Choo models in her wardrobe.
She has earned the sparkly high heels the hard way, through solid graft, waiting five years to allow herself to purchase the first pair. Now 31, O’Keefe entered the restaurant industry at 17 and has earned a reputation for her strong work ethic. At school in Blanchardstown, where she grew up, she was a high achiever. “I originally wanted to be a journalist. I loved English and got an A1 in the Leaving Cert.” But finances were tight. “I didn’t really have money to go to college. I think the CAO [college application fee] was like €60 and I didn’t have it, so I didn’t apply for college.”
Instead, she followed another interest. “When I was about 14, I started watching cooking shows, and I got cookbooks from a mobile library that used to come to my school.” The kitchen environment she saw on TV shows – she mentions the Gordon Ramsay series Hell’s Kitchen in particular – sparked her interest. “And I just wanted to learn how to do that. So I forgot about the writing.”
Offered a place on a free two-year course in professional cookery at Dublin Institute of Technology, she excelled in the kitchen and was soon working full time as well as studying. A spell at the Merrion Hotel was followed by a four-year stint at Dublin restaurant Pichet. “After Pichet I went to Bastible for a year, and did stages [unpaid work experience] at Le Bernardin in New York and Atelier Crenn in San Francisco.”
‘We didn’t tell anyone, it was going on for months and we were saying, ‘Should we do this? Maybe we shouldn’t?’
Her first chance at being head chef came when she opened Clanbrassil House for owners Barry Fitzgerald and Claire-Marie Thomas, her employers at Bastible. “I did three and a half years at Clanbrassil House. So it was time to move on. But I didn’t really want to work for people any more,” she says.
One day during the Covid lockdowns, walking home from Bujo, the sustainability-focused burger restaurant in Sandymount where she has been culinary director since it opened in 2017, at the same time as holding down chef roles, she took a different path back to her Francis Street home. That detour that was to change her life.
On Shelbourne Road, The French Paradox had a hatch open to the street, to cope with the lockdown thirst for wine. ”And Patrick was standing there, this super-tall French guy.” Asking for advice on a sparkling wine started a conversation between the pair, and when she got home, O’Keefe featured the wine in an Instagram post. “I tagged The French Paradox, and he followed me on Instagram – and he doesn’t really use Instagram. But we didn’t speak again, and then his mum rang me, out of the blue, a few months later.”
I have a way of being able to make meals very quickly, but they’re tasty, and they look good. So I hope to be able to pass that on in the column and show people how to do it
Irishwoman Tanya Chapeau, who owns The French Paradox along with her French husband Pierre, wanted to offer O’Keefe the space above the shop to open a restaurant. “She had seen me on [the RTÉ documentary series] Beyond The Menu. Patrick didn’t watch it, he still hasn’t.” Fast forward to August of last year, and O’Keefe had become the proud chef patron of Mae, named in honour of her paternal grandmother.
[ Looking for a simple, quick, versatile meal? Try this risotto recipeOpens in new window ]
By that time, she and Patrick were seeing each other, but the romance hadn’t been made public. “We didn’t tell anyone, it was going on for months and we were saying, ‘Should we do this? Maybe we shouldn’t?’ And then we told his family. It was just after the restaurant opened, and we went to Paris in September for the weekend with his brother and his girlfriend.” Patrick no longer works in the shop, which is run by his brother Jacques, having resumed his Chinese language and business studies degree. “But it was really good having him there at the start for moral support,” O’Keefe says.
The restaurant has been a huge success, achieving critical acclaim as well as a full reservations book. “The best thing is the amount of local people we get in, and they come back a lot.” And having a solid crew in the kitchen and front of house has meant that O’Keefe’s initial fear that she would never be able to take time off hasn’t materialised.
Her social media account often features images from trips abroad. “I try to visit as many cities as I can. Sunday and Monday we close the restaurant, so I try to get early flights on Sundays, to go to restaurants, but we’ll always pick a museum or two if we can.” The couple are planning a trip to New York in January, with the Met Museum and a night at the opera on the cards.
“I am not just about food. I love art. I love music. I love reading and I love writing,” she says. For her new weekly column, she is planning “really simple, tasty recipes”. Making some slightly more complicated dishes accessible to all cooks is another aim. “I have a way of being able to make meals very quickly, but they’re tasty, and they look good. So I hope to be able to pass that on in the column and show people how to do it.”
Gráinne O’Keefe: Three eggy brunch dishes for the long weekend
