Wicklow chef and RTÉ Today show contributor Maggie Roche is closing her Little Acorn cafe in Baltinglass, Co Wicklow , because the building where it is located is being sold.
“I knew about the building going up for sale. The owner did tell me and asked me if I was interested in buying it. It was going for €750,000 [now priced at €650,00] and it was way out of my league,” Roche said, adding that there was no “fallout or dispute”.
“They decided they were going to sell the building with the lease not being renewed. The bottom line is I didn’t have the money. I wouldn’t put myself under that pressure. It just wasn’t an option,” Roche said.
The cafe will close later this month but Roche, who is also resident chef at Co Wicklow wedding venue Ballybeg House, said she will “stay very busy” with 55 weddings scheduled this year. Her philosophy, informed by extensive fine-dining experience, is “simple things done well with local produce”.
Roche also has a “plan” for another venture and is “in the height of getting things ready”. She said it will not be a cafe this time.
“For me, cooking is always the most personal thing you can do for anybody. The opportunity to make people happy through your food, it’s very special. Food is memory at the end of the day,” Roche said.
Little Acorn operated successfully for six years, despite Roche never having envisaged opening a cafe. Her previous experience had included five years in the Merrion Hotel in Dublin and periods in a number of three-star Michelin restaurants, including the Waterside Inn near Maidenhead in England.
Roche said the cafe came from a “long line of tragedies”, her move home to Co Wicklow having been spurred by her father developing dementia. A temporary relocation soon became long term.
“But I ended up staying for five years. Circumstances change. To be honest I always wanted to be the best. You always picture yourself being the top person, the top chef. And then your priorities change because people you love get sicker,” Roche said.
When the Baltinglass property became available to rent at that time, “the banks weren’t giving out money” so Roche turned to family.
“We all thought we were secure in hospitality, but we weren’t. Thankfully I have five brothers and two sisters and they were able to help. I wouldn’t have ever been able to open it without them.”
The cafe’s name was inspired by her Waterside Inn mentor, Michel Roux, who died just before it opened.
“When he died I wrote an article and in it I compared him to an old tree the other chefs and I were all like his little acorns. Then I said, ‘Oh, my God, the cafe has to be the Little Acorn’,” she said.
“Ultimately this has all been about fulfilling a dream. I think when you do something that you really love, you don’t do it for money.”
It takes 70 years for an oak tree to produce an acorn, she said, and she is certain that “the Little Acorn will remain as the Little Acorn one way or another”.