Martijn Kajuiter

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“I like flowers”, Martijn Kajuiter said to us.That's just one of the surprising things about the chef who has covered himself in culinary glory ever since he started cooking in The House restaurant in Ardmore's Cliff House Hotel.

You might imagine a bloke who is six feet and eight inches tall would have his head closer to the tree tops and the clouds than the ground, but not Kajuiter. He is a surprising guy in many ways, and what may help us to understand him is something he said to a reporter for The Sunday Business Post: “I was looking for happiness in life, believe it or not”, he said about his decision to come to Ireland from Holland to cook in Ardmore. He had a rumbunctious upbringing, and it seems to us that when he composes a plate, what he is doing is making his life whole, he is aiming to make himself happy, like a kid painting a picture of his house and his famly: “Here is the house, here are the people, here is the sun shining in the blue sky, here is the grass, here is my dog...”

Fortunately, as a painter, he is more Picasso fused with Hockney than your 4-year-old-nephew.
His plated food is utterly beautiful, each element collected with an end-view in clear sight, and he works as if he is a quilter, or a tapestry maker, as much as a chef. When he sees that rosemary flower in the herb bed, he knows where it is going to have to be on the plate. He knows where the chive flowers will fall on the slow-cooked cod, where the shamrock sorrel will sit beside the scallops. His head is in the vegetable bed, but his mind is in the stars. He started in kitchens in Holland aged 17, and worked with some of the U.K.'s great names – John Burton-Race, Michel Roux, Marco Pierre White and the genial Pierre Koffmann. He has spoken about wanting to be out of the kitchen in a few years time, but there is such talent here waiting to be tied to more experience and maturity that one hopes his food continues to grace Ardmore for some time yet.

Ardmore, County Waterford
+353 24 87 800
www.thecliffhousehotel.com