Kate Lawlor-Lyne: ‘I’m back in town..back with my people’

Cork was always lucky to call Kate Lawlor-Lyne one of its own.

A chef’s chef, respected among diners and cooks alike, Kate captained Fenn’s Quay for 14 years as head chef and owner. When announcing its closure in 2017, there was a palpable sense of shock.

One of Cork’s best-loved restaurants, Kate was the determined driving force behind that reputation. A champion of supporting Cork producers, local and seasonal menus, career-focused, and a belief in the power of collaboration, Kate’s ethos was well ahead of its time.

After a spell in Worcester in England, Kate returned to Cork with a husband, two bonny wee girls, and a rediscovered grá for food and cooking.

These days, she can be found heading up the pass at her ‘Fancy Chipper’ at K O’Connell’s Fishmongers amid a gleaming food emporium downstairs at ‘Posh Dunnes’ on Pana. A more Cork experience is hard to find: a golden child of Cork’s food scene serving O’Connell’s fish at the original home of Dunnes on Patrick Street.

Kate is back cooking and happy, and we are all the better fed for it.

After shuttering Fenn’s Quay, Kate was head chef at The Oyster Tavern for 18 months when a perfectly timed opportunity to move to England with her husband, Dan, arose.

“I had been working at the level of head chef since I was 26, ten of those as head chef running a business as well. It took a toll mentally and physically, and I wanted to step back,” says Kate. “I’d spent so long and put so much into running Fenn’s, I was at a loss. Where would I go from here?”

Old habits die hard, and Kate was back working full tilt as a head chef up to two weeks before her first daughter was born.

“I was working 12-hour shifts, doing wash up. Just craziness. On maternity leave, I met Rupert Davison, a director of A Rule of Tum, a Gloucester-based [casual concept restaurant] company. They had a Burger Shop outlet in Worcester and he asked if I’d come to work for him.”

While Kate and A Rule of Tum shared an ethos for championing local food, the ask sat uneasily.

“Burgers? I was maybe a bit of a snob. I had been working in restaurants my whole life. But I said I’d give it a go, and it was actually the start of finding myself as a chef again.”

While there, Kate worked with another chef, Pete Doveston.

“He had worked abroad in Japan for some time and had joined A Rule of Tum on the premise they would open a restaurant for him. I worked with him opening what would become Maneki Ramen. It has won Best Japanese restaurant two years running,” says Kate.

“As a chef, I’d never worked with Japanese food, never understood anything about it, and it was such a joy to learn! We used to do tasting menus. I never thought it was there at the Michelin boys, but I loved working with those flavours.

“Their ethos made me feel this was where I belonged. I was enjoying being a chef again for the first time in a long time without the pressure.”

Eventually, an opportunity arose to return to Cork, this time as a family of four. Kate took a job working with Perry Street, but after a year the restaurant closed.

“I felt I was back where I was when I lost Fenn’s. I was 45 years of age, what am I going to do? Do I go back to college and retrain? Who’s going to hire a chef my age with two kids?

“I got loads of calls, but my mother advised me to take Christmas off. I did, and luckily in January, Emma O’Connell of K O’Connell Fishmongers rang me, and said would I like to come on board?

“It was like the stars aligned. I adore cooking with fish, and I’ve used O’Connell’s since my first proper kitchen in 1999. I remember Emma’s grandfather coming into Carrigaline Court Hotel with the fish, and I’d used them at Fenn’s and Oyster Tavern.”

At her fancy chipper, Kate serves up fresh fish dishes on the menu. Crowd-pleasing staples and a changing daily specials board depending on what’s good and what her taste buds want.

“I’ve found my groove,” says Kate. “I’m enjoying what I do; I work with good people, I’ve a good team behind me that wants to see me do well. It feels like I’m part of a team - a partnership - and it’s a good way to work.

“I treat this space like it’s my own little restaurant, even though I’m working for O’Connell’s. I’m the face of down here, so I’ve got to make it work. I’ve got to put the effort in, and if I don’t, it won’t work. That’s my attitude, and I think that’s why it’s been a success.”

The K O’Connell concession at the flagship Dunnes Stores is one of several that includes Sheridan’s Cheesemongers, Alternative Bread Company, Baxter & Greene, Nourish, and soon James Whelan Butchers.

“The partnership with Dunne’s works so well because it has the backing that we are going to do this job and we’re going to do it well. It’s working for us and Dunnes are happy, but we have to work it and put our hearts on the line, you know?”

It seems the people of Cork haven’t forgotten Fenn’s either.

“It astonishes me the amount of people that come in to say hello because they’re old customers of mine, and I’ve a great sense of pride when that happens. I do wonder if Fenn’s was there now, it may be doing better, but it was the right time to leave. I was 14 years there, and my life wouldn’t have gone where it is now if I hadn’t given it up. These things happen for a reason.”

Kate may have thought her fancy fish counter serving freshly cooked casual fish dishes might escape the attention of the restaurant critic, but in the summer, leading restaurant reviewer Marie-Claire Digby arrived, ate well, and left asking was this the best chipper in Ireland?

“I was so nervous. I had been out of the game for so long, I did wonder if she was going to be hard on me. But luckily, she said it was fantastic and really enjoyed the concept. I think that’s what shocks everyone when they come down the escalator - they don’t realise how fancy it is down here; how nice it is and that the concept is amazing.

“The fact that in a supermarket in the middle of Cork city you can get fish and chips as good as this. My last boss said to me: ‘If you’re gonna do something, make sure you’re the best of it’. Our beer batter [for our fish] is simple, but it works – not too thick, not too thin, and the chips are good. If your core ingredients are good, you’re going well, and thankfully she liked it.”

Fish and chips, chowder and Baltimore mussels are dishes that keep people coming back time and again, but a post-workout oyster shot?

“Oysters are full of very good things – protein, they’re lean, full of restorative minerals, and the natural sea brine helps rehydrate. We have plenty of people stopping by doing that!” says Kate.

Her West Cork Crab Samosas went viral on social media too and are a personal favourite.

“They’re not on the menu every day because they are quite labour-intensive to make, so they’re like a secret menu item. If you come to the counter and mention them, if I have them, you get them! When I’m hungry, it has to be our fish and chips, and I also love our Monkfish Katsu Curry!”

It’s far from samosas and Katsu Curry us Corkonians were raised, but it symbolises how our tastes have drastically changed, marrying with the explosion of food trucks serving dishes and flavours from all over the world.

“Food trucks are thriving here,” Kate says. “That was one of the biggest shocks when I came back, going to Fountainstown Beach and being able to get Syrian falafels in a wrap. Gone are the days where you’d just go to Angela’s for your ice cream; but then Angela’s has artisan coffee on the go alongside her 99s!”

“It’s that sense of serving their community and working together because they have to because if they don’t, they won’t get the customers. But it’s all about local. The farmers’ markets are thriving, even Dunnes have Cork Rooftop Farm in here. It’s not jumping on the bandwagon, but it’s sharing what’s out there and championing our producers.”

Asked if she’d consider opening her own restaurant again, it’s a definite no.

“I couldn’t go through the heartache of it all again. I have utmost respect for anyone who is operating now,” says Kate. “It’s great that VAT is going back down to 9%, but that’s not until next July, and there are places that won’t survive.”

“One thing I do see is more people are working together than they were, putting their heads together and doing events.

“Being involved with Cork On A Fork for the first time this year was great; we saw it during Sounds From A Safe Harbour with events that brought food and music together, and I’m doing a demonstration at the Cork & Kerry Food Market in November. It’s these kinds of events that get us working together and make Cork work.”

It may have taken a circuitous route, but Kate is finally having fun again as a chef.

“There was a lot of pressure in that first year back in Cork,” says Kate. “Luckily this came about, and it’s what I needed. It’s given me that hunger again that I had to achieve and do stuff with food that I enjoy.

“Because I’m front-facing, there’s immediate feedback from customers, that joy of someone walking past and telling you their lunch was delicious and thanking you. It’s like an adrenaline rush; a drug. If it’s a day when you’re struggling, that lift from just one person saying that was the nicest chowder, or that my bread is beautiful - that’s what I love about it. I feed off it, I feed off the energy, and the chefs that are working here with me.

“I feel like I’m back in town. I’m back with my people.”