BIO

About Gerard Meade

My passion for food began while baking soda bread and making apple pies with my mother at nine years of age as well as devouring all things cookery on TV and in magazines. It was then really ignited while on a school trip to Paris at twelve seeing, smelling and tasting foods that tickled my taste buds like never before. With a farming father and a schoolteacher mother who loved cooking I knew I had the right recipe for a life in food.

I first worked in a professional kitchen washing pots for a single weekend in 1981 aged just 14 while on holiday in Galway while visiting family there. The following summer I got my first actual job serving tables at my local hotel in Navan, as there was no free position going in the kitchen. The year after however in 1983 with my foot firmly in the door of the hotel, I finally got into a chefs uniform and have never looked back.

After finishing school then in 1985 aged 18 I went off to college for two years of professional cookery training and after qualifying I stayed in Ireland for another year before heading off to hotel school again, but in France this time and staying on for a summer of work while there in 1988.

Then it was over to London for a couple of years, Australia for a year, a bit of Canada and Belgium too along with five more years in France. I eventually returned to Ireland and worked in hotels, restaurants, event catering and industrial catering as a head chef.

Finally it would be some teaching, writing, restaurant inspecting and consultancy work advising start up food businesses on everything from kitchen design to health and safety, recruitment, recipes and menu design all the way up to opening nights for pub, restaurant, cafe and venue clients.

These days I am happily retired from day to day professional cookery after more than four decades in catering but still occasionally work in training and advising. For twenty years until 2021 I also wrote for a weekly newspaper as both a restaurant critic and food columnist. This has now evolved online into a digital format and still called Meade’s Menu about my news and views on all things food.

A JOURNEY IN PICTURES

People and places that have played a pivotal role in my food journey so far.
Click on images for the full stories.

My Parents Pat and Bláithín Meade.

My late parents are the ones who literally make who we are by both nature and their nurture. I had magnificent support from mine every step of the way and I give them a lot of the credit for how I progressed in my chosen profession and they were so proud of what I became.

Beechmount Hotel Navan

I took my formative years very seriously indeed as I knew it was a race against time to gain as much knowledge as possible in the shortest period and moving jobs as soon as I had mastered each particular kitchen. Between agency work, helping colleagues and full time jobs my kitchen count is around 150 all told and right across the catering sector and in five countries.

Passing it on.

I always loved cookery demonstrations and educating as a chef, tutor and at food events, one has to be able to cook, talk and engage the audience at the same time while both informing and entertaining, so it is a multitasking skill that really tests the communication and performance abilities of a chef.

Place on a plate.

The style and standard of hotel and restaurant logos are so important to a brand as they give the first impression of an establishment whether on the sign over the door or on menus and plates and this Dublin Restaurant in which I trained, is one that I really admired for this simple but brilliant design never mind the outstanding mentoring by chef/patron John Howard whom I am indebted to.

Sailing away.

Menu covers should really give an expression of the restaurant and in this case of owner Chef/patron Patrice Calamel, so before even looking at the dishes from his Restaurant in France where I worked, the image really demonstrates the love of the water, the seafood dishes on offer and how you will be taken on a culinary journey by the food.

State of the art.

It was important at one point when I felt ready that I got to see how I might get on at the highest level of my craft so with fluent French and ambitious streak I was fortunate to experience working in the kitchen of Belgium’s revered Jean Pierre Bruneau in Brussels when it had three Michelin stars.

Bon Appetit

I was very happy to be a restaurant food critic for many years, albeit under another name and as advisor for the Michelin Guide to Ireland for over a decade. I believe one must walk the walk before judging others and my legs have really done the hard yards.

In the news.

I was so grateful to my local county paper the Meath Chronicle newspaper for taking me on in 2001 and giving me twenty years of being able to write professionally for a local readership as both restaurant critic and columnist. I will continue to contribute to the paper as a resident food writer from time to time and now my foodie musings can go global too.

Chef Legend

French chef Paul Bocuse has been termed the chef of the twentieth century and has been a huge influence on food and generations of chefs including myself. I ate in his three Michelin star Lyon restaurant a couple of times, I was privileged to meet him in person and to talk in French with him at length on food and about Ireland too which he actually knew a lot about.

Irish Legend

I was delighted and privileged to assist Ireland’s culinary pioneer and doyenne of food, the late and great Myrtle Allen of the famed Ballymaloe House hotel in Cork in selecting and promoting outstanding food producers around Ireland as part of the Euro-Toques chef association awards panel for over ten years.

Gerard Meade Chef Meades Menu Food Blog Ireland Irish Ireland

Visitors Welcome

The last few years I have developed a keen but voluntary interest in the tourism sector both from a food and a heritage side by helping to organize local festivals, designing walking tours and initiating cultural projects like the twinning of the two Boyne valleys.

Gerard Meade Chef Meades Menu Irish Food Ireland Food Blog blogger

Safety First

As part of my catering consultancy role I have been working more and more now in the regulatory and compliance end of the business both in providing food safety training to industry and auditing of operations.