This week’s My Weekend features Jason Carroll who has travelled the world but is now home in Cork and creating fantastic food
Tell us a bit about yourself and your new business?
I’m originally from Mayfield and now live in Bishopstown. I left school quite early and started my cheffing career working with some great chefs like Alan Carroll, Pat MacSweeney and Michael Fleming before heading to London where I worked with Anton Mossiman, Pierre Koffman and Tom Akeins.
Then I headed to France and worked with Phillip Escabeche (Meilleurs Ouvriers de France) voted best chef in France in 2000. I was the only foreign chef in the kitchen brigade of 20 French chefs, so it was learn French quickly and cook the best food or you were out the door.
This was a beautiful 2 Michelin star Chateau hotel in Périgueux.
After that I spent a few years in Australia and worked in a great restaurant called Flying Fish and then moved to Fiji where I was executive chef for the 5-star Sheraton and Westin Resorts with 126 chefs, 50 stewards, 13 restaurants, a huge food and beverage operation in every way.
We came home last year and I knew I wanted to pour all this experience into something of my own and do something that no-one was really doing.
I started operating a stall at the local farmer’s markets adding new salads every few weeks and then the LovingSalads concept started to come together. I had many ideas and twists for new salads and I knew I could create healthy vegetarian and vegan food full of flavour.
We recently opened a salad and organic juice bar in 15 and 16 Academy St, Cork.
We have up to 28 salads at the moment, along with GF and DF soups and we will be adding sous vide-cooked chicken and fish as options to go with the salads.
I will also be adding Sri Lanka curries and other hot dishes to the menu. Our range of organic, cold- pressed juices as well as our selection of raw desserts have been very popular as well.
What is your ideal way to spend a Friday night?
A beer with my dad, when I can, at our local.
Lie-ins or up with the lark. Which is it for you?
We start really early so a lie-in is rare — especially with two kids bouncing on you.
Does work creep into your weekend at all?
I guess it’s like any new business, you have to be all over it and make sure your team gets your support 24/7 and that means weekends too.
If money was no object where would you head to on a weekend city break? And who would you bring with you?
London, Paris, New York, Copenhagen, Berlin, Prague, all great cities with great restaurants, hotels, culture and I’d bring my wife Sabrina and do it all five-star.
Closer to home, is there some place you like to head to recharge the batteries?
Some day I will buy a camper van and I would love to just get lost in West Cork with my family. I have spent nearly 20 years overseas and just came back last year, but I have great memories as a kid spending all my summers in Owenahincha back in the late 80s, awesome times. I have travelled a lot but at the end of the day we have some of the most beautiful places here in Ireland and I want to explore it with my family.
Do you like to catch up with family and friends at the weekend?
Usually it is family time with Sabrina and the kids, long Sunday lunch, chill out, a beach walk in the West Cork direction or it’s a catch up with some good friends with some good wines and local cheeses.
Do you get to indulge any hobbies? Even as a spectator?
I love motorcycles and I would love to build my own some day. I have the engine and a gear box in my bedroom. It’s a start.
Entertain or be entertained? If it’s the latter do you have a signature dish?
Both, its great to be involved on both sides and if I was entertaining it would be friends and family around a large table, lots of good wine, mezza- style food, dips, breads, cheeses, cold meats, salads, fish all along the table and everyone just helping themselves..
We have so many places to eat out in Cork. Where are your go-to spots for coffee/ lunch/ special meal?
Cork has some great restaurant choices, we love going to CoqBull with our kids, and when we get grandpa to babysit, Sabrina and I always try out a new place to eat — Bastion restaurant in Kinsale is a very good Huguenot restaurant. The Franciscan Well do a great pizza and a beer, Fleming restaurants for a treat, The Glandore Inn does the best fresh crab salad I ever had and I am still exploring new restaurants when I get time off
Sunday night comes around fast. How do you spend it?
We have an early dinner with the family, Aaliyah practices her guitar, Jack chases the cat with his tin whistle around the garden, I get caught with the wash-up, Sabrina sorts out the washing and we fall into bed and get ready for another crazy week of fun.