Ken Walshe remembers the glory days of Cookes Café
June 1992. Ireland is about to become one of the fastest growing economies in the world – and I've just been fired from La Stampa. I see workmen putting the finishing touches to a new restaurant opposite the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre. I've heard that a young chef has bought the lease for £30,000, and he's setting up shop on this neglected corner.
His name is Johnny Cooke, and apparently he's worked in hip American restaurants – places like The Water Club in New York and Gustaf Anders in California. He's among a new wave of chefs mixing Eastern and European flavours; something called 'Fusion.' So much, then, for Steak Diane. Or as Johnny (42) puts it today: "When we opened, the competition was still doing melon and port."
It's hard to imagine, but back then, there was something fresh about this package: the talented young chef, the location, the al-fresco dining option, the exotic menu (exotic prices!), the public relations offensive. Johnny Cooke had acquired a formidable reputation in his short stint at Polo One – which never recovered from his departure – and the new restaurant soon became painfully fashionable. Some of the biggest names in town were tucking into Cooke's classics – Caesar salad, calamari, lobster fettucine – twice or three times a week: Johnny Ronan, Harry Crosbie, Paul McGuinness, PJ Mara ... put simply, if you were a player, you wanted to be seen in Cooke's.
It didn't take me long to realise that Johnny is a 'character.' When he was out on the floor he was mild, spoke in a whisper, you'd hardly even know he was there. But once he went into that kitchen...! Put it this way: many restaurateurs don't love food. They prefer the bottom line. Johnny Cooke loves food. If you left one of his Caesar salads lying under a heat lamp where the delicate dressing might curdle or the beautifully presented Kos wilt, you were basically guilty of assaulting an infant. He bought much of his produce from the Rugis market in Paris. The ultra-fresh food was shipped in twice a week by truck; if anything was even slightly blemished, out it went. Today this sourcing of produce is commonplace, but not back then: Dublin was about to experience a Renaissance, and Cooke's was at the vanguard of this change.
Lunchtimes were chaotic in the kitchen and on the floor. Every day we were booked out, inside and on the terrace. Many of the customers were bored housewives, fresh from Brown Thomas: blonde, dripping in jewellery. They're the sort of women who order a main-course Caesar salad, pick at it, then dither and flirt with the waiter over whether or not they should have a dessert, before devouring a full portion of pecan pie in seconds. "Is Johnny around?" We had other restaurateurs, smiles stretched across their faces, resenting how hip Cooke's was compared to their own flaccid, half empty joints. We had editors, columnists, soaks. We had fashion designers, politicians, movie stars, television 'personalities,' artists, chancers and beautiful women. And then you had the Ex-Factor. Picture the scene: you're on the up, you've fallen out with a few people along the way, like your loyal business partner and that old school friend who was your lawyer when you started out because he needed a client and you couldn't afford to pay an established firm, or that lovely wife who was with you through the bad times but sadly became superfluous. As Murphy's Law and Dublin would have it, you often end up on a table beside your Ex. So what do you do? The wise ones – or do they just have more enemies? – asked for the most discreet tables, and the very wise, like Margaret Heffernan, came in early, checked the table plan to see who else was booked in, and requested to be moved around accordingly. Chillingly simple; such people leave nothing to chance.
Then there were the wannabes. For example, one afternoon Kiefer Sutherland came in for lunch with an entourage, including his agent, his agent's agent, and Catriona Ward. When they had finished eating, they started on the Cristal. By this time, most people had left. One woman and her friend suspiciously lingered on, and they were joined by several friends as the afternoon progressed. One of the women kept making trips to the ladies, which suggests a tiny bladder, a urinary tract infection or a drug habit. But she wasn't using the bathroom, she was using the phone – telling all her friends that she was in Cooke's and they'd never believe who was up there right now, right this very moment, drinking champagne and wearing a blonde! By six o'clock, nine star-struck losers had snuck out of their offices to peek at an actor.
The big enemy in a restaurant – especially at lunch, which packs the action into 90 minutes – is delay. Sometimes it's because you're short-staffed – for example, when two of your waiters are still dancing in a field near Swords (August 4, 1992). Sometimes it's because of problems in the kitchen. In Cooke's, waiters plied customers with water, tomato bread and excuses. The rich are not forgiving people by nature, so when they come in for lunch and they don't get what they want when they want it, there are problems. On one occasion the face of the city's most successful barrister turned the same colour as his red cravat after waiting 40 minutes for a starter and as long again for mains. I confess to a perverse pleasure in watching him sweat it out. Johnny was a great man for schemes. For instance, a friend of his called John Twomey, who must have been about 22, was regularly driving back from the Baltic States in his cream-coloured Lada, laden with the finest Beluga caviar known to man. Sensing an opportunity, Johnny decided to become Twomey's agent. And then we had a party. I was director of ground operations, and Johnny was going to do the schmoozing. Case after case of vodka was iced, extra glasses hired, caviar was delivered and the first guests to arrive were the press. Here I learnt an important lesson; the better the freebie, the more disgruntled the hack. Not content with free caviar and top-grade vodka, they started to ask for other spirits, wine, salads, cheesecake. When the extras they demanded weren't forthcoming, they crept away, all vague threats and angry bellies. It was a mind-blowing initiation.
I didn't get fired from Cooke's! I went back to college, wiser, slightly bemused; unless it's in your blood, most people have a finite capacity for enduring catering. Like a fashionable restaurant, it has built-in obsolescence. And so, Cooke's duly became a victim of its own success. The glitterati moved on, as they do, and a new generation of ignorant, foul-mouthed chefs stole the limelight. In fairness, Johnny stayed in the kitchen, rather than succumbing to TV dinners; he thinks chefs on television are "disgusting." Cooke's remained a special restaurant, until it closed in April of this year (2002). "South William street changed," says Cooke, looking back. "I needed to slow down, I couldn't work those hours anymore, but I couldn't afford to close that business for two days a week – not in that location." The lease is still for sale; it's yours for €750,000 – that's 20 times what Cooke paid for it in 1992. If he can't find a buyer, he'll go back in and do it all again, but the new Cooke's would be more informal; "I've always wanted to do an Italian pizza place." For the moment, Cooke is concentrating on his catering business, where his clients include Barbara Dawson of the Hugh Lane Gallery and Paul Kelly of Brown Thomas. One of the last big events in the restaurant was a surprise 50th birthday party for Kelly, who clearly respects Cooke: "Every restaurant has a different feel, but it was special. A lot of deals were done there over the years – a lot of action... Johnny isn't one of those guys who stands around and takes the credit. He's a likable guy – he works hard, and he's a really good chef."
A famous ladies' man, Johnny got married this summer to L'Oreal boss Debbie Byrne. They met one night when Byrne was supposed to be going to Cooke's. Johnny was around the corner in the Imperial restaurant. "There was a gas leak, so we had to evacuate the building, and I got her party a table in the Imperial. The following morning I rang a friend of hers and said "Who's that girl?" No one was surprised when Johnny did the catering at his own wedding. Does he ever eat out? "There aren't many good restaurants in Dublin. I go to places like Shanahan's, L'Ecrivain and Chapter One." What advice would he give anyone starting out in the restaurant business? "There's no short route to the top. Raise far more money than you think you need. Most restaurants fail because they're under-capitalised." That is the voice of bitter experience. You have to admire Johnny Cooke for maintaining the highest standards, even if you curse him for introducing the highest prices. Neither could save this peculiar piece of social history, which neatly bookends the golden age of modern Ireland.
Published in the October 2002 edition of The Dubliner magazine
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