CHEF DU JOUR:Thomas Haughton, the award-winning chef at Harvey Nichols in Dublin, comes from five generations of cooks - and thinks his sons might continue the tradition, writes Kate Holmquist
LUNCH AT HARVEY NICKS: fabulous ladies retiring after a midday salad for drinks in the bar, then looking at their bejewelled watches and shrieking, "Oh my God! It's six o'clock! I have to collect little Amber from the crèche!" This does happen occasionally, admits Harvey Nichols Dundrum's First Floor restaurant executive chef Thomas Haughton, a born-and-bred Dubliner who was kicked out of school at 13 and doesn't mind what anybody's wearing. He likes it at night, when the place takes on a flattering cosmopolitan glow as people in jeans and T-shirts eat before taking in a film at the Dundrum cinema.
His dream is to co-operate with the courts and prison services to get young people into his kitchen to learn a life of discipline, teamwork and creativity that will have them so busy, they won't have time to think. For Haughton, who sleeps just five hours per night, the kitchen offers a redemptive power and a true education for living.
Not exactly what you'd expect from the chef whose workplace has just been named Most Stylish Restaurant of the Year in the 2008 Jacobs Creek restaurant awards. Regulars at the restaurant include Ali and Bono Hewson, Guggi, Gráinne Seoige . . . there's a long list. "I know Bono really well. Famous people don't faze me. I've cooked for Yoko Ono, Madonna . . . They say the chef is the new rock star."
Haughton (33) doesn't come across as vain when he says this, but he does take pride in his success. He was unable to conform in school 20 years ago and one of his proudest moments was meeting a former teacher who told him that he was one of the smartest pupils he'd ever had. Dublin 1988 was a very different place, where a 13-year-old could find work, and there was something positive about that. Some kids don't respond to academic learning and need to work with their hands.
Haughton's first job was for a plasterer/decorator. He cycled 14 miles to work and earned £25 per week. Some days he'd be sent home because there was no work. This was before mobile phones. At 14, he became a kitchen porter and worked his way up through several top-end establishments before finding his metier at Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud.
"I learned everything from Guillaume Lebrun [ chef at Guilbaud's], and we still have lunch together. He taught me that it's about good quality produce cooked and served simply."
Haughton takes classic ingredients - the best he can find - and turns them upside down and inside out. His salad Caprese, the traditional mozzarella, basil and tomato combination, comes with the mozzarella wrapped in an eggroll-style pastry, with an accompaniment of gazpacho sorbet and tomato jelly.
Haughton comes from five generations of chefs, including a grandfather who was chef at Jammets, the iconic and stylish Dublin restaurant of the 1940s and 1950s. Haughton thinks that his sons, Aaron (12) and Cian (seven), might continue the tradition. Already, Aaron has been on 5am trips to the fish market, where everybody who's anybody in the restaurant business gathers. Haughton doesn't plan on Aaron dropping out of school, though. He even sent him to school at 9am one morning after the family had arrived home from a trip at 6am.
"You have to start exposing children to a variety of good food at an early age. You have to let them go into the kitchen and cook and make a mess. Due to a lack of knowledge, people think they don't have the time, so cooking has been taken out of the kitchen and put in a packet. But Jamie Oliver has shown that cooking a family meal doesn't have to take much time, as long as you have quality ingredients."
Haughton thinks that home economics should be compulsory in schools, since food decisions determine health, and he believes that supermarkets have a responsibility to people in how food is packaged and sold. Nobody wants to buy fish with bones in and scales on, or organic produce that's rotting on the shelf because it costs too much.
His favourite home-cooked dish is the roast chicken made by his wife, Tina, who worked in the Children's Courts until recently (Haughton is occasionally seen at the cosmetic counters of Harvey Nicks picking up treats for her).
But he also loves truffles, foie gras, red king crab, beluga caviar, single plantation chocolate, Kobi beef, and Tahitian vanilla, all used in his popular Eight Things to Eat Before You Die menu. He enjoys educating his diners. "People like to learn about what they're eating and drinking. They like a bit of theatre," he says.
Eight Things to Eat Before You Die returns to Harvey Nichols's First Floor Restaurant in Dundrum Town Centre on July 16th, August 13th and September 17th (€90 per person). www.harveynichols.com, 01-2910488