Aiden Byrne: Spurred on to cook in spite of the bullies

Sep 9 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

Emma Pinch talks to the chef who became the youngest person to win a Michelin star

AIDEN BYRNE’S dreams of being a top chef were shattered when kitchen bullies forced him to flee London for his Liverpool home.

But he had the last laugh when he became the youngest person to win a Michelin star and became head chef at the Dorchester’s famous Grill.

And while audiences are entertained by the explosive tempers of certain other TV chefs, Aiden, 36, says he’ll never become an ogre in the kitchen.

It was at home economics class, at Roughwood School, in Kirkby, that Aiden discovered his flair for cookery, where his apple crumbles and lamb stews would effortlessly earn him top marks each week.

Then, he laughs, it was all to impress his older cousin Alan Feeney.

“Everything he did I copied, like wearing my woolly jumpers tucked into my trousers and listening to Dire Straits. He took woodwork, I took woodwork. He took HE, I took HE.”

Aiden went to catering college in Huyton and at 18 took a job at the Royal Garden Hotel in London, excited to be where the action was. But he was in for a shock.

“It was horrible,” he recalls. “I stayed six months and hated every second of it.

“I used to get bullied because I was a Scouser. I was locked in the fridge overnight, that sort of thing. It shattered my world. ‘If this is what it’s like’, I thought, ‘I don’t want it any more’.”

Confidence destroyed, he went back home to his mum in Liverpool.

But a job at the Chester Grosvenor reignited his passion for food.

“I was like a sponge just soaking everything up. I learned that being a chef was about stamina.

“You’re working 18-20 hours a day and you can’t switch off at any point.”

The turning point for Aiden was going to work at Adlards, in Norwich. It had held a Michelin star, but lost it.

Aiden noticed that, as soon as the owner and head chef David Adlard was off, standards plummeted. The perfectionist in him was frustrated.

One day, he told his boss he needed a head chef.

“He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and marched me to the kitchen. I thought he was going to tell them I’d been snitching. But he said: ‘From now on, this is your head chef’.” At 22, Aiden regained the restaurant its Michelin star.

“I wasn’t doing anything fancy,” he says. “It was just rack of lamb, Dauphinoise potatoes and gravy, but I was putting into practice everything I’d learned. I’d trained the classic French way, braising for six hours.”

A year and a half ago, he joined The Grill at The Dorchester.

His menu features dishes like roasted Cornish scallops with white truffle and white chocolate risotto. His signature dish is beetroot gazpacho with vodka jelly and lime and avocado sorbet. Aiden has shared his recipes in a book called Made In Great Britain.

“I’ve always worked in the British Isles and use predominantly British produce,” he explains. “It celebrates how far British food has come over the last 15 years.”

His plan is next year to return to Liverpool and open a restaurant.

“I’ve been doing this for 17 years now and I jump out of bed and run to work every day,” he says. “It gives me a real sense of belonging to something.”

Aiden also gets a buzz out of passing on his knowledge to others.

“I have 25 chefs and I watch them grow and develop,” he says. “I remember crying myself to sleep when I was bullied and saying ‘I am never going to be like that’, because a negative comment can stay with you for years.

“But a pat on the back can stay with you for years too.”

* MADE In Great Britain, by Aidan Byrne, costs £25 and is published by New Holland.

emma.pinch@dailypost.co.uk