The award of a single star by the 1998 Michelin Guide to Conrad Gallagher's Dublin restaurant, Peacock Alley, is proof not merely of the seemingly unstoppable Gallagher phenomenon, but of the Michelin Guide's desire to extend its star net in Ireland.
In the last few years it has chosen younger, more dynamic chefs as award recipients, with Robbie Millar of Shanks, near Bangor, Co Down; Michael Deane, of Deane's in Belfast, and Kevin Thornton's eponymous Dublin restaurant picking up rosettes.
Michelin has previously reserved its accolades for classical cooking and sumptuous surroundings, such as Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud in Dublin (the only Irish restaurant with two stars), and Kenmare's Park Hotel and Sheen Falls Lodge. Now Michelin seems keen to shake off that image.
While Conrad Gallagher's Peacock Alley is certainly plush, and plays the Michelin format of formal service, his iconoclastic cooking is untypical Michelin stuff.
Riotously tall, swathed in layers of flavours and seemingly requiring the labours of a team of architects and construction workers to get it on to the plate, it is some of the most dazzling cooking the capital has ever seen.
Since Gallagher returned from a stint in France with Alain Ducasse at the three-star Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, he has signalled his intention of moving very far, very fast. A spell at Alan O'Reilly's excellent Morels restaurant in Glasthule was followed by his first restaurant, the original Peacock Alley, in a basement on Baggot Street, where his mesmerising cooking brought him widespread notice.
Gallagher then decamped to South William Street, where Peacock Alley has operated for the past 18 months.
All of that time has seen a high-octane output, both in the media - where Gallagher's work and his restless self-promotion are equally loved and loathed - and in his restaurant empire, which has recently spawned a second branch, the stylish Lloyd's Brasserie on Merrion Street. He has also produced a book of his recipes, bravely overcome testicular cancer, and become a father.
Gallagher's pace is almost an echo of the English chef Marco Pierre White, another figure who thrives on media attention and on whom Michelin had bestowed a star by the age of 25, a few years younger than Conrad Gallagher.
White, who has since been awarded Michelin's highest accolade of three stars, has franchised his name in an ever-increasing series of restaurants, and become as prolific in opening new establishments as Terence Conran. Whether Conrad Gallagher's intentions will move in the same direction, becoming an entrepreneur chef, only time will tell.
John McKenna is Food Correspondent of The Irish Times and co-author and publisher of the Bridgestone Guides, a series of guides to Irish restaurants, places to stay and food producers.