Normally, residents of Malahide have to travel for the cinema; a car trip to Swords or up the Malahide Road to the Odeon a requirement to catch the latest releases. But with enough imagination and appetite, they can still get a taste of the cinema in their home town, in an unconventional place: on the dessert menu of the Old Street Restaurant.
Old Street first opened its doors in April of this year, after a long development process. Six years ago Mark and Adriana Fitzpatrick bought two adjoining cottages, some of the oldest buildings in the posh dock town. After two years of restoration with local architect Gareth Maguire, the restaurant opened, a modern and rustic addition to the area’s packed list of restaurants, lots of leather and exposed brick, a place that promises classy cocktails as soon as you walk past the [AWARDS] and through the front door. You might be wondering what any of this has to do with cinema, but even before we get to that dessert menu, there’s an eager auteur in the eyes of Chris Fullam, the restaurant’s resident sous chef.
Still in his mid-20s, Fullam has progressed rapidly from the kitchens of the Cliff House in Waterford, to acclaimed restaurants like Chapter One, Amuse and The Greenhouse, with a spell in Holland and a nomination for Euro-Toques Young Chef competition along the way. In Amuse, Chris met Old Street’s Head Chef Fergus Caffrey for the first time, and started to develop his own culinary ideas.
“Probably one of my main influences was in Amuse, before Amuse I didn’t read much. I went there and Fergus explained how important it was and I got hooked. I spent €400 in 4 or 5 months on books, so I was reading constantly and developing my own ideas from the books. If you read my books at home it’s everything from French basics, to crazy stuff from places in America, so that’s where my influence came from. That gave me an idea of how to be your own chef, having your own ideas. That’s why I say to the girls downstairs in pastry and the lads in the kitchen it’s very important to be your own chef, because you burn out fast going in everyday and doing somebody else’s food. If you’re going to be a robot in the kitchen, you get tired very fast. Whereas if you get the passion doing your own thing, going in every day and working with people, I think that’s where happiness comes from for a lot of chefs.”
It’s interestingly comparable to the way, ideally at least, a director manages people on set, looking to collaborate, bring out the strengths of the crew around them and encourage everyone’s creativity. Just as artists in the film world want their creativity to be acknowledged, Chris believes chefs deserve the same too.
“I think it’s a really important side of it. When people leave here I want them to go onto better jobs, I want people to leave here and be happy. I want people to come in here and be happy, and I think that’s a big part of it. Putting your own dish on the menu is an unbelievable feeling. Every single day you’re in a restaurant and you’re doing your dessert, when it’s your dessert your ideas, you had a part in that, it’s a very satisfying feeling. That’s what makes the job worth it.”
CinÉireann / December 2017 59