Acclaimed chef Enda enjoys taste of success

Lifestyle – Judy Murphy meets chef Enda McEvoy whose Loam restaurant has been awarded a Michelin star for consistent excellence

Michelin-starred chef Enda McEvoy tends to take other people’s advice – even when it’s well-meaning – with a grain of salt.

“You wouldn’t want to be listening to people. You have to have an idea of what you want yourself, otherwise you’d be driven distracted,” says this quiet, focused man who has played a major role in Galway’s growing reputation as a food destination.

It’s just as well Enda has that philosophy, because otherwise he’d never have opened his city restaurant, Loam, in its current location on Fairgreen Road.

Although Loam is just a skip from Eyre Square its location is regarded as being off the beaten track – away from the busy Quay Street area. The first few months had their challenges, Enda says. But since he was awarded a Michelin star in September, footfall has been guaranteed.

This isn’t the Cavan man’s first Michelin star – he was Head Chef at Aniar Restaurant in 2012 when it won the accolade for his creative menus based totally on Irish produce.

But Enda doesn’t believe in resting on his laurels and shortly after that, he and his wife Sinéad decided to set up their own restaurant.

“Initially we were looking for a destination premises, with rooms, but that fell through,” he explains. So it was back to the drawing board. They explored various buildings around the city, “in the more traditional areas” but nothing was suitable.

Finally, they selected this premises, which had been designated ‘commercial’ in the City Development Plan. Changing its use “was a huge rigmarole” but they persevered as it was a very flexible space.

“There’s never a place that’d be ideal for what’s in your head, so you just have to roll with it,” he says.

That’s what they did.

“The building will tell you what it’s capable of – the one thing it needed to have was an open kitchen because I like to know what’s happening on the floor.”

Enda is not a fan of “having people in the background making all these things to go through a door”. It results in “no real connection” between people cooking the food and those eating it.

“You have to make food for the customers and when people come here, their first contact is with a person who made food for them.”

He’s all for the idea of having the person who prepared the food deliver it to the table and answering questions that customers might have.

It’s an unorthodox approach, but “there’s no harm in looking at existing norms and asking questions”, he feels.

That’s his philosophy, not just when it comes to food, but living too. Enda grew up in Cavan where his family owned a supermarket and also grew vegetables for other shops. A respect for food and a strong work ethic were inherited from his parents and while he veered towards academia for a while, he loved working with his hands, and always felt that would be his true calling.

He was 17 the first time he worked in a kitchen – in Germany in 1996, as a kitchen porter.

“I enjoyed the process – being part of a machine that worked efficiently and where everyone has a function,” he recalls.

Enda knew about teamwork from his parents business, but “this was different”, he says of his German kitchen experience.

“In this business, the way you work is a short, intensive process. It’s repetitive and you have to get better and better. There’s a burst of energy and people work together silently – it’s almost like a performance.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.