Raised in Edinburgh, Robbie worked in Gregan’s Castle in Clare and Campagne in Kilkenny before opening Homestead Cottage in 2023; winning a Michelin star less than a year later. He lives near Doolin with his wife and two young daughters.
Interview by Sarah Caden
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PARENTS? My parents are past hippies, always kind of alternative and very liberal. My mum grew up in rural Co Clare and got into the Lisdoonvarna festival music scene. My father is from the northeast of England, a big campaigner for human rights.
HOW WAS YOUR FAMILY LIFE? No matter how alternative they were, my mum was still an Irish mother and ruled with an iron fist. We’re a very close family willing to express our feelings, whether that’s arguments or make-ups. Nothing’s left on the table.
WHERE DID YOU FIRST GET INTO FOOD? Growing up, I was lucky to spend summers with my family in a small village in the north of Italy. It was the 1990s and when everyone else was off to the Costa del Sol, we were going to Emilia- Romagna. When my parents lived in London, they took in students and an Italian girl came to stay. She was used to her mother making homemade pasta, so her mum rang saying, “You saved my daughter!”. She invited my parents to Italy and they stayed in an old farmhouse on their land, which we then had for three weeks every summer. Every weekend there was some sort of festival with food as the centrepiece, everything from truffles to chestnuts and all sorts. I saw how people appreciated food there.
DID YOUR SCHOOL MAKE A BIG IMPACT ON YOUR LIFE? I went to a very middle class school, and it was expected that everyone would go to university. I’m definitely the biggest critic of that sort of system. I’m a big believer that university is very much for the academic, and that apprenticeships are amazing, but I don’t think they’re properly resourced or held in proper esteem.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST BIG BREAK? When I was finishing up in school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I’d had a weekend job at Waitrose, which is what I enjoyed most. I already had a love for food, so the managers put me forward for a scholarship for a Royal Academy of Culinary Arts apprenticeship. Through that, I spent time in the Ritz and a lot of Michelin-star restaurants, so I was very lucky to get that straight out of school.
WHAT DREW YOU TO IRELAND? We came here two or three times a year when I was a kid. My mum always made sure we were close to her family and our cousins. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as much at home as I do where we are now in rural Clare. We’re blessed and there’s no way we could afford the house we have in London or Edinburgh with the gardens, orchards and all that space.
We never set out thinking we were going to get a Michelin star … Lady luck has definitely been on our side.
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE IMPORTANT FEMALE RELATIONSHIPS IN YOUR LIFE? My wife, my mother, my two daughters, my two sisters, my aunts. I’ve been surrounded by women all my life. We have 30 hens at home and two dogs, and they’re all women. I’m always outnumbered. I think it makes a big difference when you’ve always had strong women in your life.
DO YOU ENJOY WORKING WITH YOUR WIFE SOPHIE? Yes. There are times when we butt heads and I feel sorry for our sous chef sometimes. We opened the restaurant two weeks after she gave birth to our second daughter, so she did more than six months running the restaurant and serving tables with a newborn strapped to her. She’s a very strong woman. I have great admiration for her and love working with her. Sophie is very much part of our unique selling point in the restaurant.
IS OWNING YOUR OWN RESTAURANT TOUGH ON FAMILY LIFE? Definitely. We close two days a week all year and three days in winter because the nights we’re working we don’t get to have dinner together or put them to bed. We don’t have family around or grandparents to turn to for support, but at midterm my mum and one of my sisters take our older daughter to Scotland, which she loves
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE TO HAVE A MICHELIN STAR? Bookings went crazy after we got it, but some people can’t understand why there’s not a large number of people waiting on them. When people get it, they get it. We’re probably the most remote restaurant in the country to have a star. Anywhere Michelin goes, it ups the level of cooking across the area. It feels like an amazing achievement and one of the proudest things I’ve ever done.
I deal with setbacks by taking a big deep breath and carrying on. I soldier on.
YOUR STYLE SIGNIFIER IS: A Barbour jacket. I have quite a number of them.
YOU BUY YOUR CLOTHES WHEN: I’m in Edinburgh and I’ll go on a spree.
DO YOU USE SKINCARE PRODUCTS? No. I’m quite old-fashioned when it comes to things like that, but at the moment I have polish on from when the girls did my nails.
YOUR EXERCISE ROUTINE INCLUDES: A lot of gardening and walking the dogs. I hunt in the winter, which involves a lot of walking.
YOU MOST RECENTLY READ: A Janis Joplin biography. I don’t read much fiction. I like true stories and factual TV.
YOU MOST RECENTLY LISTENED TO: John Prine. I’m a big fan. He lived in Kinvara in Galway, so I was lucky enough to get to see him in Green’s Bar there.
CAN YOU SPEAK A FOREIGN LANGUAGE? I’m really bad at languages. I’m dyslexic, so I try to say that’s the reason. I can speak pidgin French. Sophie speaks French to the girls who understand everything.
WHAT DO YOU COOK AT HOME? The nights we’re home, I try to do a roast one night and then usually fish. We keep it simple. It has to be something the kids will eat. We have the garden for veg and the girls are mad for peas. Trying to keep some for the restaurant is a nightmare.
A HOLIDAY YOU’D LIKE TO REPEAT: We just started bringing the kids to the farmhouse in Italy. I brought Sophie a few years ago and she fell in love it with it, so the girls love it now too. It’s peaceful and safe with lots of nice restaurants serving simple food done just right.
SEE MORE: John Molloy, Co-Founder of Memo Perfumes