Hard-drinking, fast-living Oliver Peyton has been described as the ‘P.T. Barnum of restaurateurs’ but with family, gallery restaurants and his role as a judge on Great British Menu to juggle, life is a little quieter today, although it has been said that a leopard can’t change its spots.
"I don’t think I’ve calmed down that much," he disputed on The Ryan Tubridy Show. "You make it sound like I’ve been put out to pasture there!"
Oliver has most certainly not been put out to pasture, although the door has been firmly closed on the heady days of the 80’s and 90’s during which he created avant-garde night spots that attracted the upper echelons of the A-List.
"I like doing things that other people haven’t done. I hate copying people," he said of his bars that brought something fresh and totally different to the social scene. Such a life, of course, has a price.
"I was living a pretty hedonistic lifestyle. I had a good time but, you know, you slow down the older you get, you just think, well, what else is there now… and also the business is getting bigger and so you know, it was just operating on a different basis. You sort of grow up, I suppose."
Part of Oliver’s journey towards growing up was checking himself into The Priory to focus on his mental and emotional wellbeing. "I’d gone pretty gung-ho for about 25 years and I really didn’t have a chance to have a chat to myself… I’d gone pretty wild," he admitted, describing his stay there as "a good experience".
"I actually think people taking the time to look at themselves, everyone should do it. I’m a big fan… We get too dragged along in life and then you don’t get a chance to think, well actually, how do I want to spend the rest of my life or is this right for me?"
Oliver credits his Irish upbringing, his mother’s spectacular cooking and his time living off the land with his grandparents as huge influences behind his culinary passion but not every trait he picked up from home is as positive.
"Irish men are terrible at discussing their health and their mental health and all the issues around that. For me personally, I do think part of the problem for me was I was brought up in a culture where it was OK to go to the pub at 11 o’clock in the morning… I do think it remains a problem in Ireland that men find it difficult to say, you know, actually I need to sort myself out here."
Oliver told Ryan that the latest Great British Menu celebrates the dedication of the NHS and its place at the heart of British culture.
"One of the people who is a guest judge was a first responder at Manchester Arena and he was telling me that when the bomb went off and it was on the news, everybody in every hospital just came to work. No one had to call them up. They just got out of their beds and they came to work at all different levels and that’s just what happens, that’s what makes it great."
Click on the video above to listen back to The Ryan Tubridy Show.
