EXCLUSIVE: “I hope Andrew Fairlie is proud of me, as I owe it all to him.” Lorna McNee on attracting Glasgow’s first Michelin Star since 2004.

[My exclusive post-award interview with chef Lorna McNee was first published in The Herald on January 27, 2021.]

The significance of gaining Glasgow’s first Michelin Star for 17 years as the new head chef of restaurant Cail Bruich has not bypassed the modest Lorna McNee. Emerging somewhat dazed from a night of non-stop congratulatory phone-calls and messages following the live-streamed revelation by the Michelin Guide 2021, she said simply: “I hope Andrew [Fairlie] is proud of me, as I owe it all to him.”

The new Michelin star does indeed complete a culinary circle. It was McNee’s mentor, the late Andrew Fairlie, who in 1996 first attracted a star for Glasgow while head chef at One Devonshire Gardens. He maintained it until he left in 2001 to run his own restaurant at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire – where, some years later, he gave chef Lorna her first job. That Glasgow star was retained for two years by David Dempsey, head chef of Gordon Ramsay’s Amaryllis restaurant in the same hotel, and which Ramsay closed in 2004. Glasgow then languished star-less for almost two decades - until the arrival last June of the diminutive 33-year-old from Dallas, Morayshire.

Although photography was her initial career choice, McNee gained an HNC in Professional Cookery at Moray College UHI in Elgin after leaving school in Forres where, she says, “I wasn’t very academic and wasn’t great at English or science.” As a youngster her mother, an administration assistant, always made home-cooked meals for Lorna, her two older sisters and their lorry driver father, and the family always had Sunday roast together. At college she says she discovered a skill she didn’t know she had.

Her tutor encouraged her to work at “decent” restaurants, and her first internship was at Gordon Ramsay’s Claridge’s in London. “I loved it and realised I wanted to cook at that level but in Scotland,” she said. “Then I had a meal at Restaurant Andrew Fairlie and it was like, ‘Oh my God, this is how food should taste’, so I asked chef Andrew for a job. From then on he and [head chef] Stevie McLaughlin encouraged me and taught me all I know.” She started off picking and chopping herbs for chef’s signature smoked Scottish lobster dish and progressed through each section, becoming sous-chef at the two-star Michelin restaurant.

Stevie McLaughlin, head chef at Restaurant Andrew Fairlie, said: “Lorna works with her fingertips and on the balls of her feet. She does everything with great strength, physically and mentally. What goes on the plate is flavour-driven and done with real finesse and elegance.”

She stayed for 12 years before making the move to Glasgow and becoming head chef, with her own brigade, for the first time. Cail Bruich re-launched with her five- and nine-course tasting menus last August. The Michelin inspectors visited at least twice before restaurants were forced to close in November due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.

Asked what she learned from two such culinary greats, she replied: “Discipline. It’s massive. And how to be humble. Just be nice to people. Treat them the way you’d like to be treated.” She insisted there will be no macho shouting in her open kitchen.

Although the first female chef to attract a Michelin star for Glasgow, she refutes the notion of “feminine” cooking.

“I don’t think there’s such a thing,” she said. “Food isn’t feminine because of the way it looks. I think it’s about a lightness of touch that isn’t necessarily a woman’s. I hate the whole female-male chef thing. Whether you’re a boy or a girl makes no difference in my eyes.”

That said, she admires Clare Smythe, whose Core restaurant in London’s Kensington was elevated to three Michelin stars in Monday’s announcement. “She’s phenomenal. I went to eat there with chef Stevie and straight away I thought, ‘I’d like to be like you one day’.”

She acknowledges the exceptional difficulties for all hospitality brought about by the stop-start Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, from social distancing inside the restaurant, to being only allowed to serve lunch without alcohol, to re-opening and then to closing completely, and getting to grips with doing home delivery/takeaway.

“There were so many difficulties to overcome in our first months it made us feel quite jaded,” she said. “To achieve a Michelin Star in these circumstances is even more wonderful.”

She also had to face the disappointment of being forced to postpone her September 2020 wedding to long-term partner Dawn McIntyre, who works at Gleneagles Hotel. It is now scheduled to take place in August this year. They will remain in their home in Auchterarder, with chef Lorna commuting to Glasgow.

“To gain a Michelin star and get married in the same year will be absolutely amazing,” she smiled.

She hopes to be allowed to re-open Cail Bruich in March. “At home I’m working on new dishes using Scottish morels with chicken mousse, grilled asparagus with chicken butter sauce, and I’m really excited to start using duck liver with rhubarb.

“My whole team really deserves this, from my chefs to front of house, and all our suppliers. I’m very lucky to have them all, because no-one can do this by themselves.

“I went to see Andrew the other day to give him flowers and to thank him for everything,” she added.

ENDS