FIRST went to Ballymaloe about 15 years ago. A friend took me there for the weekend and after lunch on Sunday I went into the kitchen and asked if I could work. That's when I met Myrtle. She was holding a pavlova that somebody had stuck their finger into and was determined to find the culprit. She was quite intimidating then, her voice is softer now.

I'm not sure that I really understood what she was up to back then; I didn't really 'get' her philosophy. I was in my 20s and I was still caught up in that whole showing-off type of 'chefiness' that I hope I've grown out of. I'd been working as a chef for a few years, first in Ireland and then in Holland and London, and I thought I was it. It was a macho kind of cooking that had everything to do with trying to wow people with the look of what was on the plate. It had very little to do with integrity, and that's what I've learnt from Myrtle.

I've visited Ballymaloe over the years, and I've always loved going there. But it's really only been in the last few years, since I've reached my 40s, that I've come fully to understand the importance of what Myrtle has been doing all her life and to implement her philosophy in my restaurants.

Myrtle was the first person who said that the produce that we have in Ireland is world-class and that we should have respect for it and use it to the full. The fact that there has been a renaissance in food in Ireland is down to her, the fact that people talk about food quality and integrity and slow food, the fact that there are farmers' markets and an ever-increasing number of artisan producers making wonderful products is all down to her. Without Myrtle there would be no culture of food excellence in Ireland.

Myrtle has spend years developing relationships with the local suppliers to ensure that she gets the very best of what is available. And the fishermen and farmers rise to the challenge . . . there is a deal of pride in Cork in being able to say that your beef or your lamb or your lobster is good enough for the table at Ballymaloe.

I The last meal I had in Ballymaloe was a few weeks back with a bunch of chefs from all over Europe . . . serious, world-class chefs with incredibly high standards. And Myrtle served us one course which consisted of a single slice of beef with its cooking juices boiled down with a little water and a piece of watercress on the side of the plate. That was it. It takes more than confidence to do that; it's very hard to achieve that level of simplicity. It was Beckett on a plate . . . very few ingredients, very few words. In order to cook like that you have to know your ingredients . . . it's food as religion and Myrtle's been preaching that gospel for years.

It's taken a while but I think the penny's finally beginning to drop. People are beginning to realise that there's no such thing as cheap food. The food on your plate can only be as good as the ingredients that have gone into it. It's only by having beautiful ingredients and cooking with them that you can begin to understand Myrtle's philosophy. It's a very personal experience, to work with beautiful saltmarsh lamb for example, and to see how very little you need to do to it make it sublime.

The Lindsay House on Romilly Street, Soho, is my 'master craftsman' restaurant . . .

we have a Michelin star and all the napery and drapery that goes along with those stars. It's where I base myself; if people are paying those kind of prices for a meal then they're entitled to find me cooking for them.

My new restaurant, Bentley's, on Swallow Street off Regent Street, is more fluid and the prices reflect that. And the food is straightforward, the kind of comfort food that people really want to eat. Everything in Bentley's is exactly the way I want it to be, there's no tugging the forelock to the demands of Michelin.

The most important thing about my restaurants is the provenance of the food.

Myrtle's whole life has been about sourcing the best possible produce for Ballymaloe.

The fact that Cork has so many exceptional producers of such a wide variety of foods is almost entirely due to her encouragement of and support for those producers. I was in Co Cork last week with a journalist from a UK paper on a tour of all the artisan food producers and they couldn't believe what was available . . . the cheese, the butters, the smoked fish . . . and the fact that every person we went to credited the existence of their business to Myrtle. There has been a revolution in Ireland and there is now a culture of respect for producers like the Ferguson family, who make Gubbeen cheese and a range of pork and bacon products, and for Frank Hederman in Belvelly Smokehouse in Cobh, who is the best smoker of salmon and eels and mackerel in the world.

In practical terms, if you care about provenance over and above anything else, it imposes a duty on you to see for yourself how the food that you use in your restaurants is produced. I have visited every single supplier to my restaurants from the sheep farmer in Wales to the forager who collects wild leaves and herbs for me. Not everything I use is organic, as a lot of very good producers just couldn't be bothered with the bureaucracy and expense of the official certification. In terms of meat and chicken, the good husbandry of those animals is paramount.

All my beef comes from Gerry Nolan in Cork . . . there's no better beef in the world.

The animals are treated like royalty.

I've got to know Myrtle well over the years and I'd say that we have a warm friendship. Just the other week I saw her at a conference in Castle Leslie, trying to get a network of artisan producers established in Northern Ireland. Myrtle's 83 now and she'd travelled by train from Cork to Dublin and by bus from Dublin to Monaghan and then on by taxi to be there. I hope I have even half her bottle when I get to her age.

Richard Corrigan will be among a number of stellar chefs giving demonstrations at the first Taste of Dublin, 22-25 June, at Dublin Castle.

Tickets are on sale now from �?�25, available from www. ticketmaster. ie or by calling 01 6620140