JP McMAHON


McMahon’s fourth book was published in 2024


restaurant, Tartare Café and Wine Bar, in 2017. Life was good until the pandemic hit in 2020. While Aniar and Cava


Bodega survived this difficult time, Tartare didn’t make it. “Covid and the war in Ukraine just killed us, we were losing staff and we couldn’t open, it just wasn’t sustainable and we had to close in 2022,” he says. Covid did leave him with


a sense of clarity. “It forced me to take a step back and maybe shrink [the business] a bit. We had Aniar and Cava, we had done education, we had Tartare, we had Food on Te Edge. It was just an onslaught of growth.” In fact, when Covid stopped


him in his tracks, he’d planned to open a Japanese restaurant, borrowing €1m to buy a townhouse and renovate it. “It would have finished us,” says McMahon and confesses that he’d feared Aniar would have to close too. “It was closed for 18 months because there were no tourists and I seriously thought that was it.”


As it happened, when the


world went back to normal Aniar had its best ever year.


Right: A continually evolving signature dish at Aniar is the oyster ice cream


20 ALWAYS EVOLVING


Te pandemic also taught him about the preciousness of time and his role as a parent, or as he says, “I was a father, but I learned to be a dad in Covid”. Today, with more balance


in life, he is happier. He has a new perspective on his staff too. “Covid made me realize you are nothing without your staff. When Tartare was crumbling, I couldn’t just go in and save it, I was one person and I needed a team,” he says. “You can be the best chef and have the best ideas but if you don’t have chefs and floor staff and managers, you can’t do anything.” Most chefs define


themselves by their profession but McMahon defies any labeling, as he acknowledges. “I am a chef, but I am also an art history lecturer and I am a playwright. I like painting, I started learning to play the piano when I was 40. I never learned it when I was younger and as a kid you have less confidence and maybe you get boxed in at school – you’re told, you’re not very good at art and you’re not good at music so let’s not bother. But when you are in your 40s it doesn’t matter if you are no good,” he says.


“I think sometimes as kids


we’re told, ‘you’re no good at that, so don’t do it’ and then you get put in a box. I didn’t do well at school, so I wasn’t in the box that was going to university. I was in the box that was going be a chef, possibly.” Approaching the 10th


anniversary of FOTE, he is weighing up the future. Tellingly, the theme of the 2025


“You can be the best chef and have the best ideas, but if you don’t have a team, you can’t do anything”


edition is set to be ‘evolution’. It is time for renewal, but it is also a slog with a team of two running a monumental operation. “I don’t want it to become boring or predictable. It is expensive to organize and ticket sales only cover 40% of costs,” he says. “Tis is a 20-year project, but we need funding, both public and private. In my darker moments I feel that Food on Te Edge is taken for granted. Tat people think it will always just be there.” Taking stock, a decade down


the line, how do foreigners see Irish food today? “Better, I think,” he says, adding that the majority of guests at Aniar today are foreign tourists in search of the Irish food experience. McMahon has gone beyond


his original ambition, creating a global community centered in and around Irish food culture. “It started as a chef interested in other chefs and other restaurants and has now become more of a gastronomic social experience on a much wider level,” he says. Te next iteration of FOTE


may be unclear, but it’s clear that it’s not going anywhere and you can be sure that neither is Jp McMahon.


FOR MORE GO TO FCSI.ORG


ANDREW DOWNES / XPOSURE, ANITA MURPHY


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68