Richard Corrigan - From field to fame

Having started his career as a boy of just 14 and worked his way to the very top via the kitchens of Europe, Richard Corrigan is about as far from a fad-following chef as you can possibly get. Mark Sansom meets the Irishman from humble roots, who holds Mayfair’s diners in thrall

Richard Corrigan - From field to fame Photo

Nineties London was a testbed for his creative flair and it wasn’t long before Corrigan branched out on his own and joined the Michelin ranks himself. The self-styled ‘party boy’ – known for his raucous nights on the town – takes a more serious view in the kitchen and has forged a path through his own brand of pared-back, seasonal cooking.

Do you know anyone with farmer strength? It extends further than a vice-like handshake and shoulders like the Wembley Arch. It enters their mannerisms, too. A self-assured personality runs through a farmer’s veins like original sin, born into the knowledge that a family has toiled for generations through spine-stressing labour to provide, to work, to eat, to get them where they are today.

Richard Corrigan is one such man. Born in 1964 into farming stock in County Meath – the engine room of Irish produce – he grew up with fishing rod, shotgun and shovel in hand and, though not wealthy, his ‘table was rich’ and dripping with the trappings of a family that put good food at the core of life. ‘We made our own butter, mum baked bread, the outhouses were hung with wild ducks, rabbits, pheasant and hams,’ he remembers. ‘The fridges were never shy of trout and wild salmon. We ate them every which way; pâtés, mousses, terrines.’ As Corrigan describes this veritable bounty, he enunciates so vividly – with long Irish vowels, deep inflections and gesticulations – that it would put Tony Blair in his pomp to shame. I feel as though I’m in his farmhouse kitchen with him.

However, he had plans grander than Ireland. Aged 14, he left school and went to work at a hotel, his first taste of kitchen life. ‘I was hooked. Everything about cheffing appealed, particularly the straight-talking. I’m a farmer’s son – if I say it’s raining, it’s raining. If I say it’s sunny, it’s sunny. It’s exactly the same in the kitchen.’ Corrigan then went to Amsterdam where he spent several years, helping his head chef to get a Michelin star. It was his first taste of fine dining and he wanted more. London, as they say, was calling.

‘I’ve always had a Presbyterian approach to what I cook. In my mind, it takes a lot more balls to take a beautiful piece of meat and serve it simply with some pan juices and a quality potato.'

While flitting around Europe, Corrigan was quietly developing his own style of cooking. For anyone who has eaten his food, his farmer’s confidence comes through on the plate. ‘I’ve always had a Presbyterian approach to what I cook. In my mind, it takes a lot more balls to take a beautiful piece of meat and serve it simply with some pan juices and a quality potato. I’ve not got time for chefs who stick a purée with this, purée with that.’ Indeed, starting his career in late-Eighties London, he’s seen food trends like haute cuisine and nouvelle cuisine come and go – though he’s particularly scathing of their successor, molecular gastronomy. ‘Who really wants to eat gels, spheres, xantham gum and maltodextrin, anyway? It’s not real food. I’ll leave that to the Basques. Let flavour do the talking.’

Throughout the Nineties he won plaudits for his simple style and rebuttal of trends. He learnt a lot from Stephen Bull, the man for whom he won a star at restaurant Fulham Road in 1994, though the offers to branch out on his own were flooding in. Again, Corrigan knew exactly what he was after. ‘I wanted somewhere bang in the middle of the action. I wanted people to know that they were coming for a good time.’ And so he opened Lindsay House in the heart of deepest, darkest Soho in 1995.

‘I wanted it to feel like my house. A party house. Everyone got a glass of champagne when they sat down. I’m not a boring guy and people came to know that.’ For anyone who has heard anything about Corrigan’s legendary partying, this is a major in understatement. His capacity for the craic is outweighed only by his capacity to talk, both of which mark him with the moniker he holds fondly – ‘biggest party boy in London’.

He’s one of the few people in the industry who is still allowed his tab at The Groucho Club (they famously closed the slate nearly a decade ago), and his nights out with Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver of St John would regularly roll on in a blur of Fernet-Branca, champagne and Guinness, ending only when they returned to their respective restaurants for 9.30am.

‘Not any one night stood out, it was every night. I can’t do it any more though,’ he says with a slump. So is it cocoa and slippers at 10pm now? ‘It’s nothing crazy these days. We’ll stop at three, maybe four. Those Soho years really were something special.’

We start discussing the recent sanitisation of Soho – an issue clearly close to Corrigan’s heart. As he talks and gesticulates – throwing back coffee as he does – he bangs the desk so hard that a telephone falls off. He doesn’t stop; he’s in full flow. ‘It’s changed so much. It’s a bloody shame. Outside Lindsay House we’d have drug pushers, policemen and prostitutes; it added to the character. Now it’s all traffic wardens and coffee shops. It’s all gone sterile and lifeless.’

He also developed his own brand of crime fighting to keep the Soho streets clean. ‘One night, a thief came in and nicked a mink coat from the rail. Me and the boys [his brigade] chased him onto the bus and got it back. It happened a couple of times, actually. Though we soon got a reputation and the thieves stopped coming.’ Treating vigilantism as casual sport surmises Corrigan perfectly.

Through all the fun, cooking did not take a back seat. Lindsay House won its Michelin star eight months after opening and held it for 12 years. Rave reviews meant the waiting list for a table was the longest in London. His dish of grouse en croute with Brussels sprouts became his signature and emblematic of the pared-back style he has come to represent.

After 13 years at Lindsay House and a record three wins on Great British Menu, his star had gone supernova, but he called time on the restaurant. ‘I didn’t want it turn into a spluttering comet, so I ended on a high. It was still profitable, but it was time for something different. I still own the brand and rights, as Alexis Gauthier found out when he tried to use the name.’

In 2005, Corrigan made the biggest decision of his career. He bought Bentley’s, then a failing restaurant in an unpopular part of Mayfair with no passing trade. ‘I’d spent £3.8 million converting it and didn’t sleep for a year. I was so stressed, I developed alopecia in my beard. It had a bad reputation and no clear idea what it was trying to be. It had oysters from France and meat imported from all over Europe.’ But it didn’t stay that way for long. Corrigan’s direction was clear: to make it the best restaurant serving produce from all over the British Isles. This year, it celebrates its centenary. ‘It was two years before it saw fresh air, but it started doing very well, very quickly.’ So what did he do then? Open another restaurant, of course. ‘I was offered a site at a Park Lane hotel. I’d always thought that part of town was all diesel fumes and traffic noise, but I realised that with the access to the clientele, there was potential to do something really special.’ He created Corrigan’s Mayfair and its head chef Alan Barrins in his own mold – ‘Alan is a young Richard Corrigan and a good one at that’ – and it turned a profit from day one.

His pet critics raved; Park Lane hedge fund expense accounts were spent – it turned into one of the restaurant world’s great success stories. It all centred around Corrigan’s philosophy and Barrins’ cooking: big flavours, quality ingredients, simply done.

‘Alan is one of a modern breed of chefs who I really respect- the guys I see coming through are intelligent.’

Where some chefs chastise those new to the profession who haven’t done the sweaty, shouty hard yards, Corrigan embraces them. ‘Educated people are coming into the profession. I mean degree-educated, not just street smarts. I’ve seen my brigade reading literature and history books on their breaks and I think it’s great.’

Even though his schooling finished at 14, Corrigan is a well-read man. Books are packed floor to ceiling in his office on the top floor of Bentley’s and his British and Irish geography is impressive. ‘The first question I ask a young chef is to “name five rivers in England”. If they don’t know where the trout has come from, how can they cook it? I like to see myself giving this next generation a steer in the right direction.’

I feel another monologue coming on. ‘I see myself as a general on the battlefield, a real mucker, like Wellington – who’s from Meath, by the way. I’m the general who wins battles from the centre. Wellington, not Napoleon.’

After a potted history of both generals, I ask what he sees from his wartime vantage point as the future of food.

‘We’ll be eating less meat, that’s for sure. People are becoming more aware of the cost of food to the environment. I’m sure we will take a much more holistic approach, perhaps even only eating meat once a quarter. Meat portions will get smaller. Soon, people will be sharing a sirloin between two, or eating slivers of really high-quality beef, like in Japan.’ But would this food prophet ever consider exchanging meat for insect protein as many predict to be the future? ‘Not in my lifetime. But once I’m gone, you can do what the hell you like. In fact, send me an email to let me know.’ And with that – and another bone-crushing handshake – he slips on his chef’s jacket and returns to the front line.

Richard Corrigan - From field to fame Photo

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