From fine dining kitchens in Paris and London to shaping the daily meals of a quarter of a million people across Ireland, Derek Reilly’s career has taken an ambitious and distinctly modern path. As the executive director of culinary and craft development at Aramark Ireland, Derek is the creative force behind one of the largest culinary operations in Ireland.
Aramark provides food services across a wide range of sectors in Ireland – from corporate campuses, universities and hospitals to major sporting and entertainment venues, including Croke Park and the Guinness Storehouse Dublin. The Dublin native has led the shift away from traditional canteen-style food towards fresh, seasonal, and globally inspired meals that prioritise health, sustainability, and local produce.
Having no interest in cooking when he was younger, Derek never imagined he would become the award-winning chef that he is today.
“It was never on my radar. When I left school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I had to do something. I signed up for my local college, Crumlin College of Business and Technology, and they had a Culinary Arts course. I don’t know what possessed me, but I probably thought it was easy because everyone can cook,” he says.
Within the first week, having picked up a knife for the first time, he was enthralled.
“There was something about it, and I just thought this is what I want to do,” says Derek.
Leading on from that, he completed work experience in a professional kitchen with 40 chefs.
“It was all above my head. I didn’t know what was going on. It was really scary, but even at that age, I had it in my mind that I wanted to be part of this. To be part of something, you’ve got to step up,” he says.
During his early years, Derek learned the true meaning of resilience: how to get back up and remain focused during the long hours and working under high pressure.
“Some people have a love-hate relationship with it, but I’m probably 30 years into it now, so it must be love,” he says.
“You were always the commis chef or an apprenticeship chef. When you did your five years, you were deemed chef de partie. The advice I give to students now is to try to map out your career path or where you want to be, and try to work with the best chefs you can.”
Derek Reilly pictured in the kitchens at Croke Park.\ Claire Nash
Developing an art
Derek was never a master of pastry. But when the other chefs would go home, the pastry chef was still left in the kitchen, and he used this time to gain more skills.
“After a long 12-hour shift, I would stay back with the pastry chef to see what they were doing to get the desserts out, just to learn. I was attracted to learning from strong, talented chefs, and I was a bit cheeky. I was asking questions all the time, and I just wanted to learn more and more,” he explains.
Derek used to write down recipes and techniques, and he found it was always the question and curiosity that really gave him his knowledge.
“I was always very focused and competitive, so I always wanted to be quicker, faster and know more. I read a lot of books, and one of my heroes was Marco Pierre White. I was enthralled reading his book White Heat,” explains Derek.
Derek has worked alongside the likes of Pierre Koffmann, Derry Clarke, Paul Rankin, Kevin Dundon and Rachel Allen. He has spent the last number of years in his career refining, tuning and taking on head chef and leadership roles. The speed, vision, resilience and capability that he learnt early on gave him a good grounding.
“It’s a bold statement, but in the first 10 years, I worked in very high-paced, pressurised, cook-to-order French restaurants. I learned more about cooking and tasting in those 10 years than I learned in the next 20,” says Derek.
He went from high street restaurants looking for Michelin stars, into hotel work, because he wanted to work at big events and test his skills further.
“I remember working in a restaurant in Temple Bar for two years. It was really high-paced, six days a week. One day the head chef said to me, “ You’re finished on Friday”. I thought I was doing really well. What he meant though was that I was finished because I had learned all I could from the team there.”
Importance of Irish produce
That stuck with Derek, and in his current and senior leadership roles, that’s always been his mantra.
“Within Aramark, we have hundreds of different venues and sectors. Part of our strategic culinary thinking is that we develop our chefs. We promote them to move on and up – we give them a platform to empower them and perform at the highest level, if they want to,” explains Derek.
Across the business, from fine dining to cooking in healthcare, retail, and pastry, there are a number of different chef roles. Whatever it is that employees want to be, Derek provides opportunity.
“I think, as a young chef, it was about the quality. I didn’t necessarily know where it came from, but I knew what a good fresh fillet of fish looked like, or a good piece of beef, because you just know by looking and feeling it when you’re working with it,” explains Derek.
Once he knew what quality looked like, Derek started becoming interested in where the ingredients came from and how it was produced.
“In Aramark, we spent around €50m a year on Irish produce. We have access to the best food in the country. Part of our training and development within the company is to make sure that we’re continuously on farms, we’re on trawlers, we’re on the ground to understand the challenges they are facing and how it impacts food production,” explains Derek.
Seasonality is a massive factor for Derek and his teams of chefs. Although you can get any ingredients across the globe flown in if you’re willing to pay for it, Derek says, “If you stick to the seasons, you’re going to get the best within our country, it’s about patience.”
In 2010, Derek won the National Chef of the Year by the Craft Guild of Chefs, which was a career highlight for him as no Irish chef to date has ever won that title.
“That is the Oscars of the culinary world. And a tough one to win. You are interviewed for it and have to outline your qualities in the kitchen, and how you run it, so it was bigger than my cooking. The award I felt was for me,” says Derek.
Derek Reilly leads culinary and craft development across Aramark Ireland. / Claire Nash
The next generation
Derek’s number one passion is training the next generation of chiefs. He develops the culinary teams across Aramark, through competitions, leadership and the in-house Elevate training programme.
“We do internal craft training and development through our programme Elevate. It takes place in Cork, Limerick and Dublin, and we take 12 chefs from each area. What we do is about being inspirational; we bring them out to catch fish on the trawler, or to a farm,” says Derek.
These programmes and progression pathways help retain staff because they are engaged and have the opportunity to move and develop into new roles within the company.
“No disrespect to any other job, and I’ll be biased on this, but as a chef in hospitality, it’s more than a career; it’s your life,” he says.
For any aspiring chefs, Derek has the following advice.
“It’s about absolute resilience, attitude to the job and focus. If you’re focused and have the right attitude, you will be resilient. A lot of the intense labour has been taken out. You’re not deboning chicken or fish; the food is coming in prepped. It is still a wonderful place to work, and I love the industry. Ireland is so small, and it’s a community.”
Derek concludes, “At the end of the day, we’re putting a bit of food on a plate. If we can do that, in the freshest, most seasonal way, making it hot and tasty, then we have done our job”.
From fine dining kitchens in Paris and London to shaping the daily meals of a quarter of a million people across Ireland, Derek Reilly’s career has taken an ambitious and distinctly modern path. As the executive director of culinary and craft development at Aramark Ireland, Derek is the creative force behind one of the largest culinary operations in Ireland.
Aramark provides food services across a wide range of sectors in Ireland – from corporate campuses, universities and hospitals to major sporting and entertainment venues, including Croke Park and the Guinness Storehouse Dublin. The Dublin native has led the shift away from traditional canteen-style food towards fresh, seasonal, and globally inspired meals that prioritise health, sustainability, and local produce.
Having no interest in cooking when he was younger, Derek never imagined he would become the award-winning chef that he is today.
“It was never on my radar. When I left school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I had to do something. I signed up for my local college, Crumlin College of Business and Technology, and they had a Culinary Arts course. I don’t know what possessed me, but I probably thought it was easy because everyone can cook,” he says.
Within the first week, having picked up a knife for the first time, he was enthralled.
“There was something about it, and I just thought this is what I want to do,” says Derek.
Leading on from that, he completed work experience in a professional kitchen with 40 chefs.
“It was all above my head. I didn’t know what was going on. It was really scary, but even at that age, I had it in my mind that I wanted to be part of this. To be part of something, you’ve got to step up,” he says.
During his early years, Derek learned the true meaning of resilience: how to get back up and remain focused during the long hours and working under high pressure.
“Some people have a love-hate relationship with it, but I’m probably 30 years into it now, so it must be love,” he says.
“You were always the commis chef or an apprenticeship chef. When you did your five years, you were deemed chef de partie. The advice I give to students now is to try to map out your career path or where you want to be, and try to work with the best chefs you can.”
Derek Reilly pictured in the kitchens at Croke Park.\ Claire Nash
Developing an art
Derek was never a master of pastry. But when the other chefs would go home, the pastry chef was still left in the kitchen, and he used this time to gain more skills.
“After a long 12-hour shift, I would stay back with the pastry chef to see what they were doing to get the desserts out, just to learn. I was attracted to learning from strong, talented chefs, and I was a bit cheeky. I was asking questions all the time, and I just wanted to learn more and more,” he explains.
Derek used to write down recipes and techniques, and he found it was always the question and curiosity that really gave him his knowledge.
“I was always very focused and competitive, so I always wanted to be quicker, faster and know more. I read a lot of books, and one of my heroes was Marco Pierre White. I was enthralled reading his book White Heat,” explains Derek.
Derek has worked alongside the likes of Pierre Koffmann, Derry Clarke, Paul Rankin, Kevin Dundon and Rachel Allen. He has spent the last number of years in his career refining, tuning and taking on head chef and leadership roles. The speed, vision, resilience and capability that he learnt early on gave him a good grounding.
“It’s a bold statement, but in the first 10 years, I worked in very high-paced, pressurised, cook-to-order French restaurants. I learned more about cooking and tasting in those 10 years than I learned in the next 20,” says Derek.
He went from high street restaurants looking for Michelin stars, into hotel work, because he wanted to work at big events and test his skills further.
“I remember working in a restaurant in Temple Bar for two years. It was really high-paced, six days a week. One day the head chef said to me, “ You’re finished on Friday”. I thought I was doing really well. What he meant though was that I was finished because I had learned all I could from the team there.”
Importance of Irish produce
That stuck with Derek, and in his current and senior leadership roles, that’s always been his mantra.
“Within Aramark, we have hundreds of different venues and sectors. Part of our strategic culinary thinking is that we develop our chefs. We promote them to move on and up – we give them a platform to empower them and perform at the highest level, if they want to,” explains Derek.
Across the business, from fine dining to cooking in healthcare, retail, and pastry, there are a number of different chef roles. Whatever it is that employees want to be, Derek provides opportunity.
“I think, as a young chef, it was about the quality. I didn’t necessarily know where it came from, but I knew what a good fresh fillet of fish looked like, or a good piece of beef, because you just know by looking and feeling it when you’re working with it,” explains Derek.
Once he knew what quality looked like, Derek started becoming interested in where the ingredients came from and how it was produced.
“In Aramark, we spent around €50m a year on Irish produce. We have access to the best food in the country. Part of our training and development within the company is to make sure that we’re continuously on farms, we’re on trawlers, we’re on the ground to understand the challenges they are facing and how it impacts food production,” explains Derek.
Seasonality is a massive factor for Derek and his teams of chefs. Although you can get any ingredients across the globe flown in if you’re willing to pay for it, Derek says, “If you stick to the seasons, you’re going to get the best within our country, it’s about patience.”
In 2010, Derek won the National Chef of the Year by the Craft Guild of Chefs, which was a career highlight for him as no Irish chef to date has ever won that title.
“That is the Oscars of the culinary world. And a tough one to win. You are interviewed for it and have to outline your qualities in the kitchen, and how you run it, so it was bigger than my cooking. The award I felt was for me,” says Derek.
Derek Reilly leads culinary and craft development across Aramark Ireland. / Claire Nash
The next generation
Derek’s number one passion is training the next generation of chiefs. He develops the culinary teams across Aramark, through competitions, leadership and the in-house Elevate training programme.
“We do internal craft training and development through our programme Elevate. It takes place in Cork, Limerick and Dublin, and we take 12 chefs from each area. What we do is about being inspirational; we bring them out to catch fish on the trawler, or to a farm,” says Derek.
These programmes and progression pathways help retain staff because they are engaged and have the opportunity to move and develop into new roles within the company.
“No disrespect to any other job, and I’ll be biased on this, but as a chef in hospitality, it’s more than a career; it’s your life,” he says.
For any aspiring chefs, Derek has the following advice.
“It’s about absolute resilience, attitude to the job and focus. If you’re focused and have the right attitude, you will be resilient. A lot of the intense labour has been taken out. You’re not deboning chicken or fish; the food is coming in prepped. It is still a wonderful place to work, and I love the industry. Ireland is so small, and it’s a community.”
Derek concludes, “At the end of the day, we’re putting a bit of food on a plate. If we can do that, in the freshest, most seasonal way, making it hot and tasty, then we have done our job”.
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