CONTROVERSIAL C\C\ELEBRITY chef Conrad Gallagher, who has been back in Dublin for the past month, has been declared bankrupt by the Western Cape High Court in South Africa, following an application by two companies seeking payment of debts.
Mr Gallagher owes almost €200,000 to two main creditors, the Absa bank and Mac Brothers Catering Equipment.
Debts relate to the sale and delivery of equipment to his Cape Town restaurant, the Geisha Wok and Noodle Bar and four cafes.
The 38-year-old chef from Letterkenny, Co Donegal, is also being investigated by the South African department of labour for allegedly failing to register his employees with a mandatory unemployment insurance fund.
Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, he confirmed the bank and catering organisation had applied for a sequestration [bankruptcy] order earlier this week. He said the debt to Absa bank related to an investment property that had been valued at 3.2 million rand (€276,000) last year and was now valued at 1.9 million rand (€165,000).
“I have been trying to sell it for two years now and I can’t sell it and I can’t rent it. I have been trying to wind things up there for over a year now because I have wanted to come home and I had worked out an arrangement with Absa to pay off the loan in instalments.
“Then the bank had a change of heart and they moved to call in the loan. It’s happening all over South Africa. So about two weeks ago they decided to go to court to apply for an order of sequestration.” Asked about his debt with catering company, Mac Brothers, he said he also had an arrangement with it to pay off the debt on a monthly basis. “When they heard about the bank going for sequestration they seem to have decided they better go to court too.” He said it was a “really terrible situation to be in, to have worked and saved and now to have this rope around your neck”.
Mr Gallagher said he had until September 5th to pay off the debts totalling €190,000 or the sequestration order would be granted. “I am going to South Africa next week and my attorney and I will try to negotiate an arrangement. The problem is even if we can, it doesn’t solve the problem that the properties are worth half what they were.” He said he had two other properties in South Africa in a similar situation.
On the issues with the department of labour, he said he only found out about the problems it said it was having with him “two days ago”. He said there was no question of his trying to avoid responsibilities there.
He stressed his move back to Ireland had nothing to do with his problems in South Africa. “I was always coming back in time to have the kids in school here in September.” He was “delighted to be back in Ireland” and had been wanting to come home since last year, but had been unable to.
Asked about rumours he was to take over running the restaurant at the La Stampa Hotel on Dublin’s Dawson Street, he said he did not believe it was “the right time” to get into the restaurant industry.
“I think the ones that are open are having a tough enough time of it at the moment. I’m going to concentrate on the consultancy business I have and I have a number of restaurant projects under construction in Dubai I’m working on.”
He said he was “90 per cent” certain he was going to stay in Ireland and hoped to enrol his two young children, born in South Africa, in school here. He also has an 11-year-old daughter with his previous partner, food-writer Domini Kemp.
“I’ve missed Ireland and we’re 90 per cent set on staying. It depends on whether my wife acclimatises.” He wife, Candice Coetzee, is South African.
The Irish Timesvisited his restaurant a sign had been placed on the door announcing the staff are on leave and that Geisha will re-open in early September.