Nicholas Fitzgerald
A London Irish Story as told to Matthew Dunne-Miles
“I put in a proposal for Tacos Padre...quit my job, and put time and energy into trying to make it happen. I was doing things I’ve never done before, writing business plans, five-year financials, and detailed proposals.”
"I am from South Dublin, the last little village before Wicklow. What I really like about Ireland is Irish friendliness. You don't really get anything like it elsewhere. My name on my birth certificate is Nicholas Pelayo Gonzalez, which I only found out when I tried to get my passport renewed, when it broke in half! I asked my Mum “What's going on here? This is an absolute sham!” She was like: “Yeah, that's your name”. My Mum is from Asturias, which is like Ireland in geography. It's very green. Very different food, people, and language, of course.
I went there for one month every year during the summer until I was eighteen. Cooking Spanish food, speaking Spanish, and being part of Spanish culture has always been there. I now run a taqueria in Borough Market, and I speak Spanish on a daily basis. They have a very strong food culture. My grandmother would be cooking traditional Asturian dishes, or my uncle from Valencia would cook paella over wood and a couple of bricks, which you control by taking the wood in and out.
In Ireland we have incredible produce. Some of the best that I've ever used when it comes to dairy, meat vegetables, wild fruits, and herbs. I didn’t have to go far from my house to pick blackberries and wild rosemary.Nowadays, cooking culture in Ireland is much stronger – world class. Here in London, there's a lot of serious Irish restaurateurs, chefs, general managers, front of house people. There's a big representation, more so than before.
I moved to London about ten years ago. I was delighted to be in a massively multicultural city, getting involved in different cuisine, and meeting different people.I was trying to get to every end of London as fast as possible. All the markets. Any kind of interesting food shops, whether African or Turkish, or areas dedicated to a type of food culture, whether Colombian in Elephant and Castle or heading to Seven Sisters. I was straight into kitchens. I had a job in a bakery in High Street Kensington and then I ended up working in a super busy pizzeria in Shoreditch. I’ve cooked Mediterranean food in Berlin, and pan-Asian in Stockholm.
“It was the best introduction to Mexico I could have hoped for.”
I was narrowing it down and thought Mexican food was my kind of thing. You can be cooking one sauce for eight hours, or cooking stuff underground. Ancient cooking techniques. Going to Mexico was fundamental. I ended up crossing the border by foot from San Diego into Tijuana and took a bus down to Ensenada. I’d vaguely made an agreement, with someone I didn't know, to meet in a restaurant in a place that I've never been to before. We got lost, but we got there and were received with beers and tacos. It was the best introduction to Mexico I could have hoped for.
I ended up working in Pujol, which is considered the number one restaurant in Mexico, on that trip. It was super important to cook all the things that I had been reading about. I didn't know how to burn things, you incinerate some things, it's part of the recipe and it takes a while to figure that out.
Halfway through 2019, I was working in Annabel's in Mayfair. I found out that Borough Market was completely overhauling their hot food offering. I put in a proposal for Tacos Padre immediately, pretty much quit my job, and put time and energy into trying to make it happen. I was doing things I've never done before, writing business plans, five-year financials, and detailed proposals. It was the most difficult opening I've ever been involved in. But amazing. We had no water, gas, or electricity the day before we opened. We were only open three months before the pandemic happened.
The first three months, we were running a taqueria making lots of tacos every day. Then we all had to close from March onwards. There was nothing we could do about it.
“The first three months, we were running a taqueria making lots of tacos every day. Then we all had to close from March onwards. There was nothing we could do about it.”
We reopened for the summer and were given the offer by Borough Market to run an alfresco restaurant. We got an amazing response and got to do something completely different to food-to-go. We ended up being full for the three nights we were open a week. We stopped just before Christmas, and then everything tanked again! It killed it almost completely and forced us to pivot into doing an e-commerce platform. We ended up developing taco packs, which have everything you need to make tacos at home. We make everything fresh each week. Week one was like 45 taco packs, and we thought, "wow, this is amazing". Now it's like 260 taco packs. It’s growing massively, which I find both hilarious and mind bending.
We got slapped around a bit. But luckily, we've managed to diversify and do different things. I think we're over the worst of it now. Where I was two years ago – a sous chef in a private member's club. Now I’m running an e-commerce taqueria and restaurant? It's just mad. If I didn't just go for it, the opportunity would have passed. And it would have been another five years before that kind of special opportunity would present itself again."
To found out more about Tacos Padre, you can visit www.tacospadre.com
