Celebrity chef Noel McMeel shares his farming roots

There’s a story that goes a long way to explaining how a dairy farmer’s son from Toomebridge, Co Armagh, would one day cook for the eight most powerful people on the planet. Noel McMeel wasn’t long out of catering college when a friend posted him an article about the best restaurants in the world.

“Number one was this place called Chez Panisse, run by Alice Waters in California,” says Noel as he sinks into a couch at the luxurious Lough Erne Resort in Enniskillen, where he has been executive chef for the past seven years.

“So I thought: ‘I’ll go there’.”

Having already won a scholarship placement at the famous Watergate Hotel in Washington, Noel decided to ring Chez Panisse to speak directly to Alice.

“But it would be like trying to get through to the president of America,” he chuckles at his naivety. When he eventually did get to speak to somebody, he was told he would need a prestige scholarship to even be considered.

“I was absolutely gutted,” he recalls. “But I thought: ‘How will I actually get there?’”

Here’s how.

Having read that influential American chef Mark Miller (founder of the Coyote Cafe chain) was in town, Noel turned up at his office pretending he had a meeting. Impressed by the young Irishman’s verve, Miller gave him three hours of his time and two options: a job cooking on his yacht in the Carribbean or a character reference to give to Chez Panisse’s head chef, Jean-Pierre Moullé.

He chose the reference.

“Within two days I had booked a flight to San Francisco,” continues Noel.

He was having breakfast at the YMCA in the city when he came across another newspaper article, this time reporting that Julia Child (the TV chef played by Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia) was going to be at Macy’s. He turned up two hours early to meet her and told her about his dream to work in Chez Panisse.

“She was so kind to me,” smiles Noel. “She gave me her personal contact and said: ‘Go after it and tell Alice that I said hello’.”

After eventually making it to Chez Panisse, however, he was quickly deflated when he was told that the head chef would be too busy to see him. Dejected, he was about to give up, when he noticed a telephone box across the street.

“It was like a Dr Who moment,” he says. “I rang and said: ‘Can I get through to the executive chef?’ The woman who answered said: ‘Oh Jean Pierre, he’s very busy,’ and I said: ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that I was with Mark – Mark Miller – and then yesterday I was with Julia – Julia Child – and she just wanted to contact ... And she said: ‘One second!’, and I got through to him. I asked for just five minutes of his time and I started the next day.”

Farming roots

It’s one of many anecdotes that Noel shares during his interview with Irish Country Living, from cooking for Paul McCartney’s wedding to Heather Mills when he worked at Castle Leslie (“I remember Paul saying to me on the wedding day: ‘Noel, as long as you look after Ringo and his wife’”), to catering for Barack Obama and David Cameron at last year’s G8 summit at the Lough Erne Resort. But the Chez Panisse story probably best illustrates his incredible drive, which can be directly attributed to his childhood on a small dairy farm run by his parents, Owen and Maureen McMeel.

This is to the fore of his first cookbook, Irish Pantry: Traditional Breads, Preserves and Goodies to Feed the Ones You Love with New York publisher Running Press. It’s a wholesome tome inspired by memories of his mother’s pantry, with its marble cooling slab and shelves sighing with homemade shortbread, cherry chews and feather-light madeiras, baked on meticulously lined biscuit tin lids.

However, it quickly becomes clear that his parents’ influence went far beyond the pantry.

When his twin brothers Owen and John were born with physical and mental disabilities, his parents refused to accept the prediction that the boys would never walk or survive beyond childhood.

“I remember being down in one of the fields and seeing this big truck arrive with two wheelchairs,” says Noel. “But within two days they were gone again, because both my parents had decided: ‘They are not going into wheelchairs, we have to hope that they will walk’.”

Not only did they walk, they have made it past their 40th birthday, loved and cherished by their family. But there have been other crosses to bear.

Not a day goes by that Noel doesn’t think of his sister Ita, who was buried on her 30th birthday after a long battle with illness. He also lost his father in 2012.

Needless to say, his mother is a constant source of strength and inspiration. It was Maureen who oversaw his first creation in the kitchen: a zesty orange cake she allowed him to eat all by himself – quite a novelty as one of six children, though the resulting tummy ache taught him another important lesson.

“I learned to share,” he smiles, as he offers us fresh lemon shortbread with our coffee.

His first job was in a bar in a Ballymena disco, an unlikely role, he laughs, for a boy from a family of pioneers (he only broke his own pledge at 30 for culinary purposes).

Further roles followed alongside Paul Rankin in Belfast and Beech Hill Country House in Co Derry, but despite his stint in the States – where he eventually did meet Alice Waters, who was utterly gracious – he always wanted to make his future in Ireland.

“We’ve got something special here,” he says. “I think you have to believe in where you come from, where your roots are.”

Indeed, he was determined to showcase Northern Ireland’s food producers at the G8 last summer.

“Though people always ask: ‘What about the tasters in the kitchen?’” he smiles. “Unfortunately there wasn’t anybody.”

Preparations started six months in advance, with menus ping-ponging over and back to Downing Street as Noel pushed to get local producers, such as Abernethy butter, Broighter Gold rapeseed oil and Kettyle Beef, onto the plate.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans,” he says. “They were coming into our home, but we compromised in some ways, like with an English cheese, a Welsh cheese and a Scottish cheese on the cheeseboard.

“But it really was a great showcase for all great produce on this island. We have the best produce here, we just have to believe in it.”

As this farmer’s son from Co Armagh proved when he turned up at Chez Panisse all those years ago – believe in yourself.

“I’m just an imprint of what my parents were,” he says. “And I’m so proud and privileged to have been given what I was given.” CL

Irish Pantry is published by Running Press, RRP €25/£18.99. For information about the Lough Erne Resort, visit www.lougherneresort.com