Best of Dublin - Plate Expectations - Gráinne O’Keefe

At 33 Gráinne O’Keefe has spent over half her life working in kitchens. From starting off in an Italian restaurant while studying at college, to owning her own restaurant by the time she was 30, Gráinne has packed a lot into her culinary career.
As we sit in her sun-drenched restaurant an hour before service, Gráinne is softly spoken and laid-back, but her impressive CV suggests an innate drive and undeniable talent.
“I left home when I was 17,” she recalls. “I was in my first year of college but I had to work full-time as well to pay my rent.”
Having grown up in the ‘90s in Blanchardstown, one of five children, cooking wasn’t a big thing in the O’Keefe house.
“It was very similar to what everyone else would have had,” she notes. “We lived off fish fingers, beans, crispy pancakes and spaghetti bolognese.”
Her love of cooking grew from watching TV shows like Hell’s Kitchen and from getting cookbooks from the library. Gráinne loved to cook for her family from a young age.
“I’d have a jar of Dolmio and throw some dried thyme into it thinking I was Gordan Ramsey,” she laughs.
While Gráinne has certainly carved out an exciting career in the culinary world, working in kitchens isn’t an easy number. What attracted her to the industry?

Gráinne O’Keefe

“I really wanted to be in that world. I loved the idea of how disciplined it was,” she recalls. “I was diagnosed with ADHD very recently but I knew from a young age that I’d never stick sitting down and doing a normal job, it just wouldn’t work for me.”
Gráinne got her first break working at Il Segreto while studying at culinary school Cathal Brugha Street.
“I showed up on my first day wearing a pair of high heels,” she says smiling. “I was pure hunzo with peroxide blonde hair. I looked like a little Barbie! I remember they were like, ‘Are you here for front of house?’ And I was like, ‘No, the kitchen!’”
After a year learning the ropes at Il Segreto, Gráinne worked at the Merrion Hotel, followed by a four year stint at Pichet. Following that, she staged in two three-star Michelin star restaurants Le Bernardin in New York and Atelier Crenn in San Francisco.

“I came back and started working in Bastible for about a year,” says Gráinne. “The owner Barry and his wife were opening their second restaurant across the road, Clanbrassil House, so he asked me if I’d be interested in being the Head Chef when it opened.”
Clanbrassil House was a hit, gaining a Bib gourmand within six months of opening. But running a kitchen throughout the pandemic proved to be a turning point for Gráinne.
“Each time we re-opened it was so draining,” she admits. “Naturally it became less about what you’re doing and more about how can we do this. I think after about 13 years in the industry, I was just tired. I was tired of heading up kitchens – I was just kind of over it.”
But a twist of fate kept Gráinne in the kitchen. Having seen her on TV in Beyond The Menu, the owner of The French Paradox wine shop offered Gráinne the space above her shop on the Shelbourne Road.
“It was December when Tanya rang Clanbrassil House. She just cold called and was like, ‘I want to talk to Gráinne’. Knowing her now as long as I do it’s just so her,” she laughs. “They did charcuterie up here, but we’re looking for someone to take over and rent the space, and I was like it’s an amazing idea. But it’s coming into Christmas and I’m still working in this place. If I think of anyone, I’ll let you know.”

The French Paradox

A couple of weeks passed before Gráinne had a change of heart.
“Something had happened,” she recalls. “I think someone must have asked for something well done after it went out. One of those services where you’re just like, ‘Fuck this’, so the next day I called Tanya.”
Fast forward from that twist of fate and Gráinne’s Donnybrook restaurant celebrated its third anniversary in August. Named after a woman (Gráinne’s late grandmother, Mae), owned by a woman, with a roster of all-female chefs, Mae is very much a matriarchy.

The French Paradox

“There are two men,” she says. “Julien, our sommelier, has been here from the start, and Pablo, our kitchen porter. All the chefs are female at the moment and the other front of house are both female. It’s not by design, it’s not that only women are allowed to apply for positions here (laughs)”.
So, what do women bring to a professional kitchen?
“It’s a lot quieter,” says Gráinne. “The main comment we always get from guests in the restaurant is just how calm and quiet the kitchen is. It’s just how the girls work – calm, quiet and collected.”
But ultimately, Gráinne believes it’s all down to the individual.  “I don’t think there’s anything men can add to a kitchen that women can’t and vice versa,” she says. “It’s very difficult to compare the male to the female chefs, because it’s more down to the individual than the gender.”
For Gráinne, the devil is in the detail. Mae has beautifully selected glassware and crockery and an amazing selection of custom knives.
“Even though I grew up in a house that didn’t have any wine glasses, I’ve always been particular about what I drink out of,” she says. “I’m weird with cups and cutlery, I don’t know what it is! With wine, my thinking was there’s no point getting in beautiful wines from France and talking to people about the winemakers, to then put it in a cheap glass that doesn’t really bring out the best of the wine.
“I’m in no way snobbish about wine, but when it comes to the glass, I do feel like if you’re putting an expensive wine in a cheap glass, you’re doing it a disservice – to the person drinking it and also the person who makes the wine. It’s the same with tea, which goes back to my grandmother. A core memory of being in my grandmother’s when I was younger was the cups.
“The tea tasted different in Leitrim. They had a well on their farm and the tea was always in china cups. Tea does taste better out of a china cup and it’s the same with glasses!”  What really makes Mae stand out from the crowd is its modern, seasonal dishes and superb wine pairings. Mae offers dishes like wild mushroom bao with black sesame and miso, or confit duck leg & roasted breast, beluga lentils, brown butter, roasted swede and caper berries. The set menu costs €75 per person and the wine pairings come in at €45 euro or €60 euro per person. So, what was the inspiration behind having a set menu?

The French Paradox

“The kitchen is teeny tiny,” Gráinne laughs. “A set menu allows us to do what we do to best, instead of trying to do everything too mediocre. If I was to do a big menu, à la carte, it would be messy for the kitchen. Labour costs go up, guest satisfaction goes down, so taking all those factors into consideration a set menu makes sense.
“We have minimal food waste and we have no wine waste. We can really focus on each dish. Concentrate, plan it and then change the menu seasonally. As well as that, we have the towers outside so we can put some specials on, or we’ll do some dinners, where we do something completely different just to kind of always keep everyone engaged.” Having a renowned wine shop downstairs means Mae has an exceptional wine menu. The small bar is even fitted with a provinteck, which allows them to sell high-end wines by the glass.
“You see it in Michelin p-style restaurants,” notes Gráinne. “If you have a really expensive bottle and you want to sell by the glass, it punctures a hole into it, so you can pour the wine out without oxidising the rest of the wine. It means that we’re able to create the pairings around the wines that are in the shop, which makes the wine pairings really interesting.
Julien Chaigneau, our manager and sommelier, has worked with The French Paradox for years and knows every single bottle like the back of his hand. When we plan a menu, we also plan what the wine pairing is going to be. We’ll do one for each course and then we’ll have two separate wine pairings. It’s just the price that’s the difference, and it’s not that one is better than the other. If people are really interested in wine, they might go with the higher price point just to try those wines.”  After more than three years of great business and glittering reviews, have things changed at Mae?
“It’s very similar to when we first opened, but also completely different,” Gráinne considers. “For the first few months up until Christmas, it was absolute fucking chaos. I was also trying to learn how to do all the other stuff on top of the menu and the kitchen and hiring staff. My sous chef started and she didn’t speak Englishk but she was really good at cooking, so I was like, ‘Fuck it, it’s fine. I’ll figure it out’, and it evolved from that. A lot of the core elements are the same, the food style and the concept.
“Also, the culture of having a good work-life balance for the people that work here, having a really open and honest system in regards to service change and tips. People feeling like they have a life outside of work is something that I really wanted to be a part of Mae.”
Mae is closed Sunday and Monday, so everyone on the team has their two days off each week. Gráinne strives to cultivate a healthy approach to working in the restaurant industry.
“If you’re good and if you do a lot, people can take advantage, and if you aren’t giving back then what’s the point? I want people to get as much out of working here as they give,” she asserts. “I strongly believe that the way you treat people will always come back around. If you treat people well, you’re not going to have to deal with many people leaving all the time. I would hate the thought of someone leaving and having bad things to say.
“We just don’t have that here, it’s a nice team, everyone gets along. It’s calm, everyone is professional. Everyone wants to do what they’re doing and be proud of that, and then that’s it. Just leave it here, go off and have your life, and come back the next day.”
Gráinne has a winning attitude towards her staff and their work-life balance, but what is it that makes a restaurant feel special?

Gráinne O’Keefe

“It’s the team that makes the experience,” she says. “Having the right ethos and people who have the same values. When we first opened the reviews were all really good, but a common sentence in each one was how the food was ‘beautiful, seasonal and simple’. But they were putting an emphasis on simple. Like why isn’t she doing this or that, but that’s not me. I’ve never been someone that has been into molecular cooking or foraging or fermentation, it’s just never been my style.
“It was never my intention to do something to get reviews to say I’m trying something different. I just wanted to cook the food that I’ve always been known for. Also, with naming it after my grandmother, it’s very homely with a nice atmosphere – cosy but also friendly and accessible. I wanted to make it casual but elevated.”  Gráinne is also the culinary director at burger joint Bujo, which has restaurants in Terenure and Sandymount. A born and bred Dub, how does Gráinne find working in the suburbs compared to Dublin city centre?
“It’s so much more intimate when you’re in the suburbs,” she says. “After working in really busy restaurants and hotels, I didn’t want to do those numbers again. I didn’t want that big, busy vibe and I didn’t like the idea of doing something big in town. I got offered investors before I opened Mae, and it would have been for something big. But to me it looked like paperwork, it looked like a pain, it didn’t look fun, it didn’t look interesting.
This is just so nice here. It feels like we’re in our own little space, in our little village and neighbourhood. We have really good friendships with all the people on the road. I feel completely out of the loop with what’s going on in the industry, but I like it that way. I’m more interested in the team here, the team in Bujo and the guests that we have here, and less interested in what’s going on in town.
“I barely even go into town anymore. It was so chaotic for so many years that I really love peace and quiet!”
Gráinne O’Keefe has achieved a hell of a lot in the last few years, so where does she see herself five years from now?
“Mae will definitely still be open” she says, knocking on the wooden table. “I want to have a more casual-vibe place too, do something a bit different. More côte de boeuf and sharing style.”
Her sister Siobhan recently joined the team at Mae, which will give Gráinne more time to broaden her horizons.
“She is an amazing event planner and she is in the process of opening her own event planning business, so we’ll probably do that together too.”
Gráinne also has a cook book coming out.
“I did the cover shoot yesterday,” she says. “It’s going to be me in a dress on my kitchen counter with my cat! I also want to develop my own cat food. It’s not really a money thing. I always had cats and kittens when I was younger, I was obsessed. So I want to develop one that is as nutritionally complete as it can be, but also inexpensive. And then maybe open a little cat shelter!”
The sky’s the limit.

• Mae Restaurant, 53 Shelbourne Rd, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 Tel: (01) 231 3903 maerestaurant.ie 
• Featured in Hot Press "Best of Dublin" available down below