"Our kitchen was crafted from a sycamore tree that came down in the Christmas Eve storm of 1997. That was our first year in the Tannery and even though we had planned on building a house, we didn't know then that the storm would feature in our new kitchen," says Paul Flynn, who now lives in the house he built just outside Dungarvan with his wife Máire and their daughters Ruth and Anna.
“However, a few years ago we really got tired of the all- wood look and painted the kitchen blue. The painter nearly had a heart-attack, told us it was a sin. But if you’re watching Grand Designs on a regular basis, your taste moves on.”
The Flynns have gone for a traditional look, and the powder blue Aga fits in perfectly. He is a brand ambassador for the company. “It’s my favourite part of the kitchen. It went in a few years ago and has become the fifth person in our home. I cook on it all the time. It really suits my way of cooking: low and slow.”
The Aga replaced a Smeg oven, and until recently Flynn cooked only on it (he also has a microwave, the only one of the four chefs featured here to have one). But he has just installed a two-ring gas hob “at Máire’s insistence. Hopefully it will replace the electric egg boiler (shudder) that she uses.”
Most chefs can’t resist adding a bit of a flourish when designing their home kitchens, and Flynn is no exception. “We have a large walk-in refrigerated cold room, which at the time the very cheffy part of me thought would be essential. But really now I wish we had kept the space as we don’t use it in its refrigerated capacity most of the time and it has turned into a bit of a walk-in pantry. Really we could have done without it.”
The Flynns’ parties are legendary. Most of the action takes place around the kitchen table. “When we built the house in 2000 we spent a lot of time in Keighreys Auction rooms in Waterford as we love the mixture of contemporary and antique, and our best buy was our kitchen table, which I think came from the Bishop’s Palace in Waterford, and can seat 12 comfortably. Many, many dinner parties have been held on this over the years and if that table could talk, it would have a lot of stories.”
Is there anything he’d change, if he was designing his kitchen again? There are a lot of things we would change. The biggest thing for us is where our main sink for washing up is situated, along with the dishwasher. We are constantly over and back to the cupboards.”
Paul Flynn is chef patron at the Tannery Restaurant and Cookery School in Dungarvan, Co Waterford
