What's it like to win a Michelin star? Three Munster chefs on joining the exclusive club

The other two were for young ‘first-timers’, with McEnteer joined on stage by Robbie McCauley of Homestead Cottage in Co Clare. Both are still pinching themselves, coming to terms with what happens when childhood dreams come true.

Though intentions were never overtly flagged, it was no stretch to assume Cashel Palace Hotel’s executive chef Stephen Hayes and GM Adriaan Bartels had sights laser-focussed on a Michelin star, to add to the luxury five-star hotel’s allure. 

Bartels as GM had already presided over the same achievement twice before, in Sheen Falls Lodge in Kenmare and The Cliff House in Ardmore.

Hayes is a highly experienced chef, including almost five years as head chef at the aforementioned Michelin-starred Cliff House. The backing of billionaire owner JP Magnier’s war chest certainly wasn’t any hindrance either.

McCauley, on the other hand, took the ‘DIY’ route, he and wife Sophie Fontaine, launching Homestead Cottage in a rented cottage just two weeks after Sophie gave birth to their second child. 

McCauley is also the head gardener as they grow much of their own produce, another challenge when they had a skeleton crew and a budget barely large enough to do anything other than open the doors.

Stefan McEnteer grew up in Kingscourt, Co Cavan, the second of three boys and when he wasn’t pursuing his passion for soccer, he was baking with his mum.

“Cheffing was never a glam industry when I was a kid but you were seeing more of it on the telly, Great British Menu (GBM) and Masterchef. I used to love watching Masterchef: The Professionals and GBM, as a kid it opened my eyes to the many different styles of cooking and the different techniques used and introduced me to all these big names, Paul Ainsworth, Daniel Clifford, Sat Bains, Richard Corrigan, and Michael Caines.

“When I was leaving school, nothing else really interested me other than becoming a chef. The career guidance teacher said “great job but very unsociable hours and you’ll miss out when all your friends are partying and going on holidays, having 18th birthdays, 21st birthdays”.

Unfortunately, I took his advice and started a computer course. I hated it and dropped out after one year then went into hospitality, working front of house. Then when I was 22, 23, I went back to college to train to be a chef.

“During college I worked with Neven Maguire [in MacNean House & Restaurant] which is where I fell in love with the fine dining side of things — Neven is exactly the person you see on telly and I fell in love with the more precise cooking.”

After college, McEnteer began travelling and building up his CV, including time in Boston, Spain and three years in Derry Clarke’s L’Écrivain, in Dublin, before landing a job as sous chef in Cashel Palace, two months before it opened in March 2022. In August 2023, he took over as head chef.

“It was my first head chef role, I was very nervous but I got good support from Stephen, from Adriaan, and the senior staff. It was hectic to begin with but now I’m in total control of everything in The Buttery. I come up with my dishes, cook them, and then we all sit down as a team to taste them.”

Robbie McCauley was born and raised in Edinburgh, along with two older sisters, to a Scottish father and his mother, a Clare woman from Barefield.

“I cooked a lot as a child, definitely, the family was into their food, we spent 13 summers going back and forth on holidays to a small village outside Faenza, in Emilia Romagna [in Italy]. When I was about 15, 16, and in school, the choices I was considering were either engineering or kitchens and the recession had just kicked in, engineering jobs were few and far between and I was told, ‘people always need to be fed’.”

McCauley moved from Edinburgh to London aged 17 to study at the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts, while working in the kitchens of the Royal Automobile Club, on Pall Mall.

“At the beginning it was a bit daunting but I loved it and stayed until I was 21, and I did a good few stages — I was in The Ledbury, for a week, the year they got their second star. But I started to feel I was missing out on a few things and the big city wasn’t everything for me, so I went back to Edinburgh, to Number One, which had one Michelin star.”

After that, McCauley came to Ireland, working in Gregan’s Castle, in Clare, then Michelin-starred Campagne before returning to Gregan’s as head chef.

His return began to attract significant national attention for his cooking, which was most definitely star-worthy.

When you get to a certain level as a chef, keeping a weather eye open for Michelin inspectors becomes a daily routine. McCauley recalls: “One in particular was a single guy, English number — some restaurants keep databases of names and numbers that have been used by inspectors — but when he came, he was very nice, very chatty, so you thought, maybe not.

“Then we had another visit but again, we weren’t 100%, this guy was very quiet, didn’t really speak to us, and we only realised for definite they had been in when they posted on Twitter and we got a few plugs for dishes and stuff.”

But it is only when the invitation comes to attend the awards ceremony that a restaurant truly knows something’s afoot. 

“We heard the emails had gone out,” says Hayes, “but we got nothing, so we were getting anxious but then [Adare Manor chef] Mike Tweedie told me a friend had [received an invitation] and we found the email got blocked in my spam folder — it was a big relief.”

“I was in the kitchen,” says McEnteer, “we started dinner service at 6.30pm, my phone went off and it came up on the watch as a ‘message from Stephen Hayes’ so I said, grand, not that important, thought nothing of it, finish what I’m doing and reply when I get a minute. Within about 30 seconds, it rang again, so I said, ‘Jesus, Stephen Hayes, what’s wrong with him?’ and called him back. He said, ‘Check your WhatsApp, I’ll stay on the line.’ I didn’t have good reception so the pic wouldn’t load properly — I could see the banner but couldn’t see the whole thing properly, so I said, ‘is that what I think it is?’ and he said, ‘yes.’ The first hour of service was a haze, I was on cloud nine, you are trying to keep it quiet, you’re not saying anything but I told the kitchen team. Even talking about it now has got me buzzing again.”

Despite also receiving the Michelin ceremony invitation, McCauley had other reasons to be cautious. “We were definitely a lot more nervous than some of the other [chefs who also got the call], there was no foregone conclusion that we were getting a star because we do a lot around sustainability and work with a lot of local farmers and regenerative farmers and grow so much of our own produce — we thought that they might be considering us for the Green Star [for sustainability in a restaurant].”

On the big day, February 5, the Irish Michelin-starred chefs traditionally assemble for lunch, meeting again later that evening for the awards ceremony. Held in Manchester’s Midland Hotel, in a surprisingly small room, everyone is crammed in together, including some of the biggest names in hospitality. Hayes, McEnteer, and McCauley were cheek to cheek with idols of their respective youths including Claire Smyth, Claude Bosi, Sat Bains, Tom Kerridge, Gordon Ramsay, Daniel Clifford, and Jason Atherton.

“The lunch was the first time for me meeting a lot of the Irish chefs,” says McEnteer, “I’d eaten in their restaurants but not properly met them. We sat with Robbie and he was in the same boat as us, a weird feeling that you’re over with all these people who are so recognised and then knowing you are going to be put in to the Guide along with them. Then at the ceremony, there were all these big name chefs you see on telly, whose cookbooks you buy, who you look up to like gods.”

Then all were ushered into their seats, the tension rising as the ceremony began.

“The name went up on stage,” says McEnteer, “and don’t ask me what happened after that. I went up and was on that much of a buzz that it didn’t really sink in until I went back down to [Hayes and Bartels] and it sank in for us.”

“Sheer delight,” recalls Hayes, “so happy — until the name is called up on the screen, you don’t take anything for granted, it was brilliant … and all the Irish contingent were very supportive.”

“There were screams, hugs, and kisses, it was good,” says McCauley, “Garrett Byrne [chef/proprietor, Campagne, Kilkenny, and Robbie’s former boss] was next to us. There was a bit of a sigh of relief after all the trek over and not knowing if we were getting a star or a green star. We stayed around and met up with a few others and ended up drinking until 4.30am.”

“We hung around in the hotel,” says McEnteer, “and then went to the pub with the whole crowd, got up at silly o’clock the next day to go back to work, it was the best hangover I ever had. In the morning, Adriaan was standing in reception with the bottle of water and two Panadol for the two of us, a very welcome gift. He had us well looked after.”

A Michelin star changes everything: “We had been consistently busy,” says Hayes, “but it has moved to another level entirely now. And we were always just getting there in terms of staff but the calibre of CV now is much higher, staff we have want to stay, really good people want to come and work here — we are in a good place across the board. Now, we keep the standard, retain the star that we’ve worked so hard for but long term we want to push on for two stars, but most importantly, we want a full restaurant and happy guests.”

“It’s any chef’s dream and would have always been a dream or ambition of mine,” says McEnteer. “My ultimate goal would be to have my own restaurant but that’s a while away yet. Right now, it is to retain the star, keep putting out as high a quality food as we can and see where the road takes us.”

For Robbie and Sophie, it has been life changing. Not only is their fledgling restaurant always fully booked but they are in the enviable position of being able to stay open all year round, often a serious challenge for rural fine dining restaurants, which is crucial for maintaining staff year on year.

“We only got the plaque recently and it’s still settling in, it’s been too busy to get a chance to enjoy it properly. We planted 400 soft fruit bushes over the winter, the orchard is being extended and our garden is very demanding. Our plan is to take on a gardener to take pressure off me, and we hope to buy a field down from the house. And, hopefully, someday, we will be able to buy our own restaurant.”