{"id":369294,"date":"2026-03-28T05:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T05:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/369294\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T05:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T05:53:12","slug":"the-biggest-challenge-is-the-feeling-of-exposure-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/369294\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The biggest challenge is the feeling of exposure\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time ever, an Irish chef made it to the final of MasterChef: the Professionals. Last night, Dubliner Mark O\u2019Brien was one of three finalists featured on the flagship BBC<\/a> programme, together with Luke Emmess and eventual winner Gareth Baty. He didn\u2019t win, but for anyone who makes it to the final of this flagship cookery<\/a> competition for professionals, it\u2019s a remarkable achievement. <\/p>\n

Now based in Margate, England, O\u2019Brien has had to keep the outcome of the final a secret since July last year. \u201cI told my wife Gill, and a few members of my family. But you have this whole thing you\u2019re sitting on for months and months.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien grew up in south Dublin, in Cabinteely and Monkstown, later moving to Greystones in Co Wicklow. His father still lives in Dublin, and when he travels back to Ireland, he likes to visit King Sitric in Howth, Kai in Galway, and Goldies in Cork City. And Coppinger Row in Dublin, where he once worked. <\/p>\n

Cooking with fire and smoke, southern American barbecue style, is a core element of O\u2019Brien\u2019s style, which he had been experimenting with in various pop ups in Margate. Then one day he saw an ad on Instagram inviting chefs to apply for the show. He put in an application, like many others, who also saw the ad. And then his phone rang. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere were four rounds after that. A big online application, two phone Interviews, and one in person,\u201d he says. \u201cNone of the auditions involved cooking.\u201d The first time contestants see the studio, the judges and the camera team is when they arrive for the opening part of the competition, which is a time-based technical skills test. If they look anxious, that\u2019s because they genuinely are: everything is new.<\/p>\n

For this season, the show was filmed over some 10 weeks, at various locations. \u201cOnce you get a couple of weeks into it, the filming really ramps up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The days are long, starting at 7am or 8am. \u201cYou film some pick-ups, then have lunch, and the full cook is in the afternoon.\u201d There are always between five and six cameras filming everything, with one crew member specifically assigned to each chef. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest challenge is the feeling of exposure. You\u2019re cooking in an environment you\u2019re not usually in, and there are cameras on you all the time. It\u2019s a miracle that anyone manages to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t know that from watching O\u2019Brien, who is a natural on camera: calm and likable all through the season. His menu for the final started with an elegant seafood platter, of sake-poached mussels, steamed oyster with caviar and horseradish cream, and diced scallop with champagne gel, pickled celery and grape. The main was southern spiced pork loin, crispy cabbage roll with crayfish tail, hot pepper pur\u00e9e and crayfish sauce. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Favourite food destinations around Ireland: From a death row-worthy meal to a carvery to rule them allOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The dessert \u2013 a riff on coffee and doughnuts \u2013 involving malted milk bavoir, was missing its beignet, the doughnut element. \u201cI ran out of time,\u201d he says ruefully. \u201cMy starter took a lot longer to plate than I intended to. Another 90 seconds, and the beignet would have made it on.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the guest critics are invited on the show, they are served hot food. The judges, however, Monica Galetti, Marcus Wareing and Matt Tebbutt, eat food that has gone cold by the time it gets to them. All those amazing looking plates of food that get served up after each cook to the judges? Stone cold. <\/p>\n

It takes time for each dish to be critiqued, a lot more time than ever makes it to air. \u201cYou could be there for 10 minutes at a time,\u201d says O\u2019Brien. What airs is an edited balance of whatever positive and negative criticism the judges dish out. So all the plates are cold to taste, although the judges do deliberately taste as they move around the test kitchen while the contestants are cooking.<\/p>\n

The other thing viewers probably don\u2019t realise is that contestants don\u2019t even see each other\u2019s dishes, let alone taste them. They\u2019re working at their own stations, and only see what their rivals plate up when they watch the show back. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien stated in the competition that his ambition was to open his own restaurant. He can\u2019t reveal anything yet, but \u201cstuff is in the pipeline\u201d as he puts it. \u201cBeing on MasterChef helps to open doors for people who don\u2019t know the restaurant industry really well; say, estate agents, but they recognise the name MasterChef.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the show, judge Marcus Wareing is on record as saying he \u201ccan\u2019t wait\u201d to try whatever restaurant O\u2019Brien may open. A future stop for The Irish Times food critic may well be at Margate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time ever, an Irish chef made it to the final of MasterChef: the Professionals. Last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1578,615,93,13355,61,60,7469],"class_list":["post-369294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bbc","tag-dublin","tag-entertainment","tag-food-production","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-wicklow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}