A west Belfast chef who has trained under some of the world’s leading culinary figures, including Marco Pierre White, is bringing the “heart and soul” of his former restaurant to a new local venture.
Michael O’Connor has been appointed executive chef of the newly relaunched Avenue Brasserie at The Malone Hotel, bringing with him more than 30 years of experience in kitchens stretching from south Belfast to Sydney.
The move also sees the former Barking Dog owner return to BT9, less than a minute from the restaurant he ran for 15 years before its closure in 2023.
Speaking to The Irish News, Michael admits he never expected to find himself cooking in the area again.
“I genuinely thought that chapter had closed,” he says.
“But coming back to BT9 is very familiar. It feels a wee bit like home.”
Michael O’Connor has been appointed executive chef of the newly relaunched Avenue Brasserie at The Malone Hotel.
PICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN
Michael had previously worked at The Malone as acting sous chef but when the executive role initially came up he admits he was hesitant to take it on.
“I just thought, I don’t want a job. I want to go in, get a bit of cash and go home basically,” he recalls.
“I remember Gareth Macklin, the director of the hotel, saying ‘Just put your hat in the ring’, and I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to. I’m not in the headspace for it’.”
However, several months later, Michael found himself missing life at the helm of a kitchen.
“My wife went, ‘You want back in the game, don’t you?’ and I went, ‘Yeah, I do’.
“So I went back in to see the general manager, Chris Lockhart, and we sat down for a good two hours and had a good chit-chat and I was offered the job,” he says.
“I came out of it, went home and spoke to the missus and she just went, ‘You’ve got a twinkle back in your eye now’.
Former Barking Dog owner Michael O’Connor is returning to BT9 with his new role at Avenue Brasserie.
PICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN
“This place just sort of lured me back into the kitchen.”
Michael’s career in food began at 17 after a “chance encounter with a cooking leaflet”.
We want to use good produce and concentrate on what I started off doing at The Barking Dog, which was using great suppliers and great ingredients
— Michael O’Connor
“When I went to college I had a lovely tutor called Cathy and she just handed me a leaflet and that’s literally how I became a chef and just fell in love with cooking.”
After gaining experience at home, Michael moved to London where he spent around nine years working in professional kitchens, including Marco Pierre White’s Mirabelle.
“I was four years into cooking and I thought I knew how to do it. When I went over there, I knew absolutely nothing,” he laughs.
“There were 30 chefs in the kitchen when we were used to maybe four or five, so I was just trying to absorb everything going on around me like a sponge.
“It’s funny because Marco is the original angry chef but his head chefs and sous chefs were just as bad. They were bulldogs. They were properly relentless.
“Everything had to be down to the perfect tee.”
West Belfast chef Michael O’Connor brings more than 30 years of experience to his new role at The Malone Hotel.
PICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN
Michael still remembers arriving into work one morning after making a mistake the previous day.
“I came in and everything from my fridge was sitting on top of my bench.
“The senior sous chef walked past me and went, ‘Morning, did you get my message?’ and I went, ‘Yes chef, got your message’.
“That was a lesson.”
Despite its intensity, he credits the experience with shaping him as a chef.
“One of the chefs I was working with said, ‘Kid, go do it. If you last two weeks, two months or two years, you’re going to learn something’.
“It was tough, but it was brilliant.”
Michael later moved to Sydney, where he took on a senior role at a top restaurant inside Star City casino.
“I remember when I got the job the executive chef said, ‘There’s only one rule. You’ve got to get a hat in the first year’.
“And that’s what I did.”
Michael O’Connor says Avenue Brasserie will have its own identity while retaining some of the “heart and soul” of The Barking Dog.
PICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN
After two years in Australia and another stint in London, Michael returned home.
Not long afterwards, he met Sam Spain, who was then operating The Barking Dog as a burger restaurant.
“I met him for coffee on the Wednesday, he told me what his plans were, we met again for dinner on the Friday night and the two of us walked in on Monday morning,” Michael says.
“We shut down the burger restaurant and we had The Barking Dog open 10 days later.
“We had a budget of £940. We bought a saladette, a load of pans and we just cracked on.”
The Barking Dog went on to become one of south Belfast’s best-known restaurants, attracting loyal regulars as well as famous faces.
Michael counts Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage among his favourite celebrity customers.
“Peter Dinklage was just lovely,” he says.
“He used to come in every weekend with his wife and his kids and there was just good banter with him.”
Kit Harington, who played Jon Snow in the series, also provided one particularly memorable evening.
Game of Thrones actor Kit Harington
“The night he was killed off in Game of Thrones, he was actually sitting in The Barking Dog having a fish pie,” Michael laughs.
“The paparazzi got a whiff of it and we had to bring him into the kitchen and get him out another way.”
Now Michael is bringing that experience to Avenue Brasserie, where the new menu will combine several Barking Dog favourites with new dishes.
“It is a hard balance because people will expect to have Barking Dog favourites, which we will have, but we’ll also have stuff that’s unique to us in here. We want it to have an identity of its own.
“We’ve put on a beautiful halibut this summer. I usually stay away from halibut because it is at the high end of fish, but I thought, new restaurant, let’s go high end.
Michael O’Connor has worked in kitchens from Belfast to London and Sydney during his three-decade career.
PICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN
“We want to use good produce and concentrate on what I started off doing at The Barking Dog, which was using great suppliers and great ingredients.”
For Michael, keeping the food simple and allowing those ingredients to speak for themselves remains central to his approach.
“Young chefs have this habit of over-complicating dishes, where sometimes you just need to strip that back,” he explains.
“You don’t need to stick another purée onto it. Just let the produce do the work.
Michael O’Connor hopes to recreate the buzz of his Barking Dog days with the newly relaunched Avenue Brasserie in south Belfast.
PICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN
“We’re already starting to make our own sauces and stocks and playing about with breads and stuff like that. We just want to make sure we’re doing really fresh, delicious food.”
Looking ahead, Michael hopes to recreate the buzz he remembers around the area when he first opened The Barking Dog in 2008.
“A big success in a year’s time is having the place filled,” he says.
“It’s having both locals and tourists coming through the door regularly and bringing more bodies into the kitchen, more talent into the kitchen.
“That’s my main aim.”