He's not afraid of change, is Michael O'Meara. In recent times, having spent a decade making Oscar's into one of the few restaurants in Galway that one can rely upon, he decided to change its name to Oscar's Seafood Bistro. It's a small change, but significant, because it signifies the change in his own approach to cooking, and to what he wants to offer to his customers.
At the same time he began an M. Sc in the culinary arts, and he balances these changes in working and direction with a steady gig as a photographer, a discipline to which he brings a characteristic free-wheeling discipline that is so evident in his cooking.
Ask him about his work and he will tell you: “The more I figure out about cooking, the more I realise I don't know”. That is the sort of thing many chefs think and believe about their work, but it's one which few have the courage to admit. O'Meara is thoughtful, and his honesty fastens his modesty.
He is a child of the Seventies – born in '71 – and enjoyed his mother's cooking, along with the exposure to French culinary culture when the family went on camping holidays in the 70's and early 80's. He is hungry in the way so many of the 70's kids are – hungry to learn more, to keep on learning more. “I have a Spanish kitchen porter at the moment who is showing me how to cook food from his home, which I count as a valuable influence”.
Everyone he has worked with has taught him something, but that says more about O'Meara than about the uniqueness of his culinary journey: “I try to learn something from just about everyone I meet”. You get the urgent sense of someone trying to make everything special – each dish, each evening, each moment of each evening and of each dish as they are made in the Oscar's kitchen. He should be better known, but Galway cooks don't seem to travel beyond their city, and in their own backyard they are often cruelly under-appreciated. One hopes, with that Masters under his belt, that this inquiring, frank chef will turn to teaching, for the man with a lot to learn has a lot to teach others.