“I’m excited. I’m looking forward to seeing where we can take it,” says a low-key Lewis Barker as he sits by the fireplace in the lounge area of Terre at Castlemartyr Resort in Cork. The “proud Yorkshireman” is speaking just a couple of weeks after arriving in Ireland to take over the role as executive chef at the two-Michelin-starred restaurant, a heady role no matter how experienced or skilled the cook. Barker has already made the kitchen his own, starting early with changes to the canapé menu and quickly working his way up.
He is taking over from Vincent Crepel, who departed Terre earlier this year. The 32-year-old says he ended up in this tiny corner of Cork because he was “ready for a move”.
“I kept thinking to myself that something would come if I could just be patient – it’s easy to kind of dive into something only for it not to work out. I feel that this is great for me.”
Barker is originally from Leeds but he has lost “a little bit of the accent over the years”. Unlike some other eminent chefs, he does not have a romantic family tale that gently guided him into his career.
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“I don’t have that ‘granny cooking in the kitchen’ or ‘mum’s recipe’ memory that led some people into cooking. I come from a very working-class family, and my interest in cooking started on the TV,” he says. “Big fan of Saturday Kitchen, Rachel [Allen] from around the corner [in Ballymaloe], that sort of thing. [Gordon] Ramsay’s Boiling Point was kind of my raw introduction to kitchens that made me think I’d like to try and do that.”
He also loved reading cookbooks and immersing himself in their world. “I just loved the symmetry, the art, the creativity of it all. I took food tech in my early teens too, so from year 10 [age 14 to 15] to my GCSEs, and that was it for me really.”
Barker’s first real food adventure was a part-time job at age 15 in Anthony’s, a restaurant near his Leeds home, where he was bitten by the fine-dining bug. He started with basic jobs such as peeling potatoes and cleaning mussels.
“I just wanted to work faster, better, harder so I could jump into the action. Then I decided to study professional cookery at college. I did my VRQ [vocational-related qualification] levels one, two and three at Leeds City College while working at Anthony’s, and then I decided to just travel. I kind of thought to myself, How far can I go?” he says.
Quite far, as it turned out. He travelled to Australia for two years and worked in two of the country’s best restaurants – Vue de Monde in Melbourne and Quay in Sydney – before spending a year in Barcelona. He landed in Singapore in 2016 and it remained his home for the better part of a decade.
“While I was in Barcelona, I looked into the idea of Singapore and the more I saw, the more interested I was. I ended up working with an Irish chef, Andrew Walsh, for a year when I moved over. Then I was approached to take on a sous chef position in Bacchanalia, a restaurant with one Michelin star,” he says. “It closed during Covid, but I stayed on and partnered with the owners to open Sommer in 2021.”
Aged 27, Barker took on a chef-patron partnership and won a Michelin star just nine months after opening, which the restaurant maintained until closing in October 2024. He had firmly set up a life there – his wife is a teacher, who will work out the rest of her contract before joining Barker in Cork next summer. The couple had their first child earlier this year, and Barker says that being apart from his wife and their seven-month-old has been extremely tough, despite believing that setting up a new life in Ireland is going to be better for them all in the long run.
“After almost 10 years I was ready to move closer to home, so I had started looking at moving back to the UK,” Barker says. “My parents are still in England and I wanted to be closer to them, especially after my wife and I had our son. Aside from all that, rents are super high in Singapore right now – it’s so expensive – and there are so many restaurants closing, so it felt like it was the right time to leave.”
Having met the owners of Castlemartyr Resort, Dr Stanley Quek and Peng Loh, while living in Singapore, Barker says it felt right when he was approached to take on the role as executive head chef at Terre, which opened in 2022 and was promoted to two Michelin stars as part of the 2024 Guide.
“That’s the beauty of this industry: you make a connection and then you never know what opportunity might be around the corner. Once they approached me, everything happened pretty quickly and it felt like a no-brainer. I’m lucky that I have a very understanding and supportive wife!”
Barker says he started developing dishes for the Terre menu as soon as he got confirmation of the role and is excited to continue connecting with local suppliers as he explores Ireland.
“I like to describe my cooking as contemporary French modernised through Asian flavours. Not every dish of mine will have an Asian element, but it’s all in the seasoning. That’s something I really worked on while in Singapore, working with things like koji instead of just salt, or dashi, pozu, a little heat from chilli,” says Barker. “That’s what I’m trying to bring to Terre. There’s something about Ireland that feels like home and after not having proper seasons for nine years, I’m really excited to be able to have all four again.”
He is full of praise for the kitchen team he has inherited too.
“There’s a really talented team here already and working with them has been brilliant. We’re using top-quality ingredients, like beef from Michael McGrath down in Shanagarry, Goatsbridge trout, and Rossmore Oysters. Our Jersey cream comes from Ballymaloe House, so the cows are milked in the morning, then it’s delivered in the afternoon – how incredible is that?”
On the day of our chat, Barker has been working with the team at Terre for a fortnight and is set to fully change the menu over the next few days. He describes the new experience as a journey through the local area and Ireland itself, including dishes such as line-caught sea bass aged for a week via a Japanese method called shioyaki – salting before cooking – that is then grilled and rested over smoking Midleton whiskey barrel logs. As many of the vegetables, herbs and flowers as possible are being sourced from the resort’s garden and polytunnels. Overseen by head gardener Kevin O’Shea, the garden is a project Barker really wants to emphasise over his first year. Even now, when there aren’t that many plants in bloom, he has found a way to bring O’Shea’s work into the diningroom.
“Kevin has been organising all of the arrangements on the tables and around the restaurant. They feature heather, herbs and the like from around the estate to introduce people to what he’s doing,” says Barker. “After guests have their first two canapés in the lounge, Kevin will bring them down the hallway to the kitchen, where they are served their next two before heading to the diningroom. The hallway is full of preserves and microgreens, and Kevin will explain them to guests. I want him to be able to tell his story throughout the year, he’s proud of what he produces and I think involving him adds a little more to the experience.”
While the full menu change is starting slowly, the two canapés Barker has developed are already on offer and he serves them with pride. Describing them as “maximum flavour bombs”, one is a tartlet inspired by tartare, with aged beef, fermented kansuri chilli paste, yuzu kosho, barbecued red pepper, N25 caviar and egg yolk jam. The other is made with citrus-cured Goatsbridge trout, ginger, shallots, sake-marinated roe, and katsuobushi emulsion. Flavour bombs indeed – they speak to the plan Barker is planning to execute at Terre.
“I’m such a perfectionist and I love the top-quality ingredients, precise execution and artistic flair you need to have for fine dining; that’s why I’ve always been drawn to this level of cooking. I’m ambitious and I think there’s always more to strive for. The day that you think you have nothing to learn is the day you know your passion is gone – and I still have a lot to learn and do here. Terre has two Michelin stars and I want to retain them, but I don’t want to get carried away yet about winning more,” says Barker. “This version of Terre that we’re building is a completely new experience. I’m here for the long haul, I’m building a life here for my family and I can’t wait for them to join me.”
