It was the fabled Yannick Alleno, of Paris's Le Meurice Hotel, who opened Eamonn O'Reilly's culinary eyes, helping him to realise that the best guys in the game operate at a different level, and express a more profound respect for food than O'Reilly had witnessed before. But if it had not been Alleno, it would have been someone else, because O'Reilly was a precocious talent, hugely hungry for experience, achievement and responsibility, a kid who was always going to find exactly what he needed.
He opened One Pico at the fledgling age of 26, but we can explain the precocity as part of the family genes: he begged his dad, Patrick, for the chance to work alongside him when only fourteen years old, and he still ranks his dad as his “fiercest and most constructive critic”. It hasn't always been plain sailing, though: for a while O'Reilly's food erred with experimentation that sometimes worked, and sometimes didn't. These days, with both One Pico and Bleu to run, and two more ventures in the pipeline for late 2010, he is more disciplined, and more understanding of what customers want from a chef, a room, an experience. The extraordinary thing is that he is – believe it or believe it not – not yet forty. He is devoted to the business, with an almost old-fashioned passion for the glam and grandness of dining. He is an asset to Dublin, and insufficiently recognised as one of the best of his generation.