Top Northern Ireland chef Robbie Millar has gone to serve up food at God's own table, mourners at his funeral were told yesterday.
The poignant tribute to the Michelin star restaurateur (38), killed in a road crash at the weekend, came as about 1,000 friends and relatives gathered in a Co Antrim village to pay their final respects.
His parents, Eithne and Bill Millar, were burying their son alongside his brother, Brian, who was killed in a motorbike accident more than 20 years ago.
Business chiefs, television personalities and world-class chefs, who had frequented Mr Millar's Shanks restaurant near Bangor, Co Down, packed into Ballycarry Presbyterian church.
Mr Millar's mentor, Paul Rankin, under whom he worked at Roscoffs in Belfast during his early career, wept openly.
Former Irish rugby international Trevor Ringland, hotelier Howard Hastings, BBC sports commentator Jim Neilly and North Down MP Lady Hermon, were among the mourners.
Many of those at the funeral comforted Mr Millar's wife and business partner, Shirley, and their three children, Theo (6), Sasha (3) and Tara Rose (1).
The Co Down chef died when his Masserati sports car crashed in the Craigantlet Hills outside Bangor early on Saturday.
The mourners heard his close friend and High Court judge, Donnell Deeny, pay tribute to Mr Millar's warmth and the skills that won him a Michelin star at the age of 28 and saw him retain it for the next decade.
The Rev Gabrielle Farquhar, who led the service of thanksgiving, stressed that despite his status as a so-called celebrity chef, Mr Millar never looked for fame.
After the funeral service, mourners filed out of the church for Mr Millar's interment in Ballycarry New Cemetery alongside the brother he lost in 1982.