Hotel and Restaurant Times met with the youthful Head Chef who talks us through his humble beginnings
Originally from Cork city, Killian Bowen is currently the youthful Head Chef of the Michelin-star Morrisson Room restaurant at Carton House Hotel in Maynooth.
From humble beginnings as a kitchen porter at the age of 16 (a time when he admits that he couldn’t tell parsley from coriander), Killian was drawn into the world of haute cuisine by its sense of camaraderie and work ethic.
By the back door
Killian’s introduction into the culinary arts was certainly by the back door and his first taste of the catering sector was more craic than cuisine. From his first job as a teenager with the catering firm for the former EMC² factory to the Curraheen Greyhound track, the emphasis was on fun team work rather than refined service.
From a Culinary Arts Course in Kinsale, Killian’s first work experience was at the kitchens of Carton House in Kinsale. He was only three weeks into the position when the three senior chefs walked out one night.
“The sous-chef had told us this was going to happen beforehand,” Killian said, “and he advised us not to follow them because the issue had nothing to do with us… What followed was a bit of a blur to be honest. Service had to go on so we all mucked in.”
It was a steep learning curve, but he soon found that he was ill-prepared for his next posting at Kinsale’s Blue Haven Hotel, where he was assigned to prep work.
“I never got it finished on time,” Killian recalls, “nobody had showed me how to do it properly.”
Fate intervened
Once again, fate intervened to push Killian into the spotlight: With a rash of staff shortages one evening, Killian was called on to prepare service.
“I knew I could to it, from being in the other hotel. That was a really good opportunity for me to show that, while I might not have been the best on prep, I could do the main job.
“I had a really good service that night and after that, they switched me and I was doing services then and no more of the prep work. It was very busy – there were about 300 people a night… I’d never before been surrounded by so many different things going on at once. I loved the buzz of it. I was completely addicted.”
“When I told my family that I wanted to become a chef, they broke down laughing… my mother didn’t like the kitchen and my father (a lorry driver) worked long hours, so when he’d come home, if he cooked, it would be something like rashers and sausages.”
Fine Dining
After the addictive buzz of working on the front line of a busy Kinsale kitchen, followed by the chastening experience of summer in the US (where he had found all kitchen doors closed to him due to lack of qualifications), Killian decided to thrust his best foot forward and applied to the 5-star Hayfield Manor in Cork City.
“After the experience of doing 300 covers a night with a huge menu, it was now 30 covers a night with a tasting menu in their fine dining restaurant…. I was on garnish with a chef de partie.”
In spite of challenges, he acquitted himself well and then moved to the bistro restaurant where he refined all his cooking skills. One of the main aides he had for learning more about cooking was the array of specials. Often printed on pieces of card not much bigger than a bookmark, Killian made a point of keeping each one, bringing it home and studying them to gain a greater insight into how to manage food and produce a fresh menu.
“I was like a sponge but it took a long time to click, but when it clicked, I really took off.
“When you’re on a high level like Michelin-star level, then it’s almost easier because it’s so fixed, so regimented. You’ve 30 covers; therefore you need to make 30 of these, and you therefore need to make 35 – just in case!
“Everything before wasn’t so systematic. With Michelin, there are systems and that’s why I fell in love with Michelin; because it’s so systematic.”
His next move was to Waterford Castle, to where former Hayfield Manor colleague Mick Thomas was appointed Head Chef. Mick then asked Killian to join him there.
“It was nice to be asked… Mick is a really good friend and a still a really good mentor.”
Reflecting
At this point in his career, Killian is in a position where he takes people on in the kitchen while at the same time, he can remember what it felt like to be wet behind the ears entering a kitchen for the first time.
“I think that overall, it’s important not to bombard them with too much,” he says. “You might be telling them 20 things but they’re really only taking in 4 or 5 of them; there are only 4 or 5 of those skill sets that they’ll remember.”
“You should never put a young chef in to run a section on their own… there should always be chef de partie or a junior chef there to show them how it’s done. I see it all the time and then if they actually overcome the section (all on their own), their ego goes through the roof. That’s the worst thing that can ever happen them because now they think that they’re doing things properly when they were never actually shown how to do things properly.
“You need to put in the hours at home as well. I remember when I got into a Michelin kitchen for the first time, I became really obsessed with every single kitchen in the whole world – always looking at the top 50 or top 100 in the world.”
The Michelin-star scene in Ireland has really taken off over the course of Killian’s culinary career. When he began, there were about 4 or 5 restaurants with a star. Now there are over 20.
One criticism that Killian has, however, is that, at a level when there should be more creativity and individuality, a certain uniformity has crept in.
“I think that many restaurants tick all the right boxes… but there’s no real story behind it. That’s what a lot of places are missing. If you take pictures of all the dishes from one-star restaurants around the country, you can almost identify each one – which is good because it means that each chef has his/her own style. But then you look at them again and you see that the style is almost all the same… because they’re all following these trends and these styles.”
Many trends are driven by social media and, he says, it’s all too easy to get drawn into following the path that will lead to Michelin stardom.
Right now, however, Killian’s focus is on creating dishes that will give respect to the place where he works.
“It’s important to pay respect to the room and to the history of the room,” he says. “You can make great dishes but if they’re not linked to the room or linked to one another, then you’re not doing a good job.”
Right now, he says, he’s working on a concept based around Irish mythology.
“That would be a real storyteller and an experience for people,” he says. “I’m also really interested in going over old menus, such as one that the Queen Elizabeth II of England had when she visited Áras an Uachtaráin.
His advice for the younger self or any young prospective chefs de cuisine starting out?
“Give it a go… from my own experience, you can have a hundred bad days and then one good day, just because something clicks in your brain. And the thing is that it’s not super-enjoyable until that happens, so you have to stick it out for that day to come along and to put in the hard graft for that to happen.”
