CHEF Michael Deane has mellowed over the years from being the enfant terrible of the north's culinary scene to the proud 'father' of a new generation of Michelin quality chefs from his Belfast kitchens.
And it appears that he's never been more content since he burst into the city’s jaded restaurant scene in 1997 with a hunger to bring his inimitable style of cooking to our palettes.
Life is good for the 55-year-old, who admits that these days his emphasis is more on running his business than spending 18 hours a day in the kitchen, doing the detailed food prep that comes with retaining the all-important Michelin star that he once held for 14 years in a row.
He’s in both great physical and financial shape, having come through the depressing downturn when many people just stopped eating out.
Family is even more important to him than ever these days. His only surviving parent, his dad Ted – who Deane says he's never ever had a cross word with in his life – celebrated his 90th birthday on St Stephen's Day in a special family celebration with afternoon tea at the Merchant Hotel.
Along with his wife Kate Smith, the former UTV news presenter, and their teenage son Marco, Deane is due to ring in 2017 later tonight in New York after dining at 11 Madison Park, the world's number two restaurant this year, on a $295 (£238) a head dinner menu, safe in the knowledge that his seven restaurants back at home are no doubt full to capacity.
"Marco is not a gourmet and may never be. He's not a high-end eater at all," Deane says of his son, who he and Kate adopted from Thailand when he was two. "He's a typical teenager [about food] so he will have to try and struggle his way through it,” he adds.
But perhaps best of all, his relatively new high-end restaurant Eipic, under chef Danni Barry, has won back the Michelin star Deane lost in 2011 due to problems with the restaurant property. His popular Deanes at Queen's restaurant, under Chef Chris Fearon, also holds a Bib Gourmand, a mark of quality for excellent quality meals at a value price.
We meet in the warm darkness of the Eipic dining room, designed by Kate who is now fully immersed in the business as a director/shareholder, where the hallowed food cooked by Danni and her team is served to a discerning clientele who are prepared to wait several months to get a table at the weekend.
Deane's trademark hair remains long, though dappled with grey now. But he's still instantly recognisable, helped by the fact that his restaurants' walls are dotted with photographs of him.
"I knew I didn't have the brains to be a doctor or a lawyer but I didn't want to be," he says, recalling his boyhood, first living in Dunmurry, on the outskirts of west Belfast, before later moving out to Donaghadee, Co Down.
"We were just an ordinary family but I knew I wasn't ordinary. I never actually wanted to be the best cook in the world as I wanted to be a businessman. People used to think I was gay or eccentric or whatever with my long hair but I was a bit rebellious and just wanted to be different, I suppose.
“My father had long hair; so does my brother who's the musician Belfast Busker, who lives in Cornwall, so I suppose we were a bit of a rock and roll family – but I'm actually more into country music now."
From initially frying frozen plaice and chips and serving Black Forest Gateau as a teenager, he knew there was more to food so he took the advice of the chef from the Strangford Arms and left to work in London.
There he became a protégé of the great chef Anton Mosimann at the Dorchester Hotel, becoming a commis chef in his mid-20s, systematically wearing down his great idol to teach him every single thing that he knew.
Returning to Belfast, he spent some time working in Belfast Castle before opening Deane's on the Square in Cultra in 1992 with his cousin, Hayden Deane, and went on to open Restaurant Michael Deane in Howard Street in 1997.
Former Roscoff (later Cayenne) chef/owner Paul Rankin, the late Robbie Millar of Shanks restaurant near Bangor and Deane were part of an ambitious, ultra-competitive triumvirate who spurred each other on to gain their Michelin stars, also bringing a legacy of young chefs to the north under their tutelage.
"It's one of the things that keeps me motivated because it's closed," Deane says of daily driving past the site where Roscoff, formerly a byword for high-end eating out in Belfast, used to be. "It's shocking but it makes me determined to succeed. I couldn't say a bad word about Roscoff or Shanks, or the lads at Ox. Paul and Robbie were both amazing chefs.”
He's now on a mission to ensure that we are known for more than our Ulster fry and breads throughout the world and is a proud ambassador for all things Belfast. This year he did a £150-a-head Irish tasting menu at the St Regis Hotel, Bangkok, to fly the flag for Belfast food.
"Even though I'm a bit older, I can still rattle the pans a bit," says Deane, "But it hurt me as it was six nights in a row.”
Just as he was once told by Mosimann that a chef will only innovate as much as management will allow him or her to do so, that's what he aims to give Barry, sous chef James Devine – who walked off with the major accolade of National Chef of the Year UK title in October – and some of his other young chefs.
"All my chefs all cook from the heart, but I have to keep them right, particularly the young kids. I have to be the daddy and if it's not working right I have to tell them; that's what I do," says Deane.
And evoking the wise words of the Californian chef who has seven Michelin stars over three restaurants, he says: "Thomas Gellar said if we can't make the next generation of chefs better, what's the point of doing what we do?
"I'm Belfast's biggest fan and the city has definitely turned a corner. It's people like Bill Wolsey and ourselves who have helped it turned a corner.
"I like to think that I've been part of building a good city and I'm proud of that."
QUICKFIRE QUESTIONS
:: Favourite childhood meal
Steak and chips. It's still probably my favourite adult meal, particularly when cooked by my chef James Devine
:: Best meal ever
It has to have been at Michel Trama's Puymirol hotel in the south of France a few years back. That's something that Kate and I both agree on
:: City break or beach holiday?
Beach holiday, preferably in the sunny Algarve
:: Best book/movie?
This year it has to be Belfast On A Plate by Joanna Braniff (formerly of The Irish News) and David Pauley, a book that paints an excellent picture of the restaurant scene in Belfast
:: Top celeb diner
Rory McIlroy – he's an absolute gent
:: Chef to watch
Mark Abbott (of Great British Menu fame), from Co Antrim
