Ingredients are certainly one of the most important factors, and at the top level I use some very extravagant methods and materials. For instance, we use only large fish because they have more flavour. If I use rabbit I import specially reared animals from a particular district in France.

The meat and herbs I buy comes from growers whose methods simply cost more than those of ordinary suppliers, because they are organic or because their standards are so high. I am profligate with things like truffles and caviare. When I make a wine sauce, I use only a fine wine rather than plonk. What you need in order to be able to cook well – apart from good ingredients, good instincts, imagination, a little knowledge and good equipment – is a love of what you are doing and a love of eating. Those are things that animate me more than anything else, as they do to my old chef Jean Michele who ran a two Michelin star restaurant in Dublin.

I opened Frasers in September of this year with Fraser McGill. Running a successful restaurant needs two different skills; obviously you need to understand food and be able to cook, but you also have to run the front of house, manage the business side and create an atmosphere: that’s where Mr McGill comes in. I met Fraser many years ago and we have become very close friends and work colleagues. After long meetings we decided to bring a taste of Scotland to Austria, but with a twist.

.I have worked in very well-known restaurants all over the world from Dublin to South Africa from one rosette to two Michelin starred. Over the years of long hard days it finally paid off as I was asked to write recipes for three catering magazines and cook for Her Majesty the Queen of England at the opening of the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh to the joy of all my friends and family. I now have the great challenge of cooking in Vienna with new and exciting flavours, good products, and very friendly people that I have met here.