When I moved to Paris at 16, I held a dinner party in my first apartment and served only red wine, French fries, and mashed potatoes. Unable to cook, I relied on people taking me out.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Six months later I was in Paris. I was 16, and it all started to happen.
If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
I had my first French meal and I never got over it. It was just marvelous. We had oysters and a lovely dry white wine. And then we had one of those lovely scalloped dishes and the lovely, creamery buttery sauce. Then we had a roast duck and I don't know what else.
The Paris peace talks kept a roof over my head and food on the table and clothes on my back because if something was said going in or coming out, I had the rent for the month.
I opened my own restaurant when I was 17. I went broke, then traveled around the country, learning about different kinds of foods, had three other restaurants that went broke. It didn't all start just a few years ago!
In my second year in Los Angeles, when I was eighteen, I wasn't getting any bookings, so I stopped going out, stopped partying. It was a matter of getting to the work. I had to focus.
I lived in Paris for six months when I was sixteen. It was a fend-for-yourself environment.
I went to Paris when I was about 18 and then went to Miami and New York. I did all of that alone. I did it to myself.
I was born in a suburb of Paris, and I grew up there until I was 16, so there were always a lot of barbecues, a garden, friends.
When I was 18, I left Dublin and moved to Paris. I didn't speak French. I didn't know anyone. I felt like a fish out of water.