About Michael O'Hare

Michael O’Hare is one of the most exciting young talents to emerge on the British culinary scene in recent years. His bold, dramatic style is as much inspired by modern art and contemporary music as seasons or ingredients. Outspoken and outlandish, he’s been known to sport silver boots and a leather apron and his nick name of Hair Metal Chef has been well earned with a series of striking mullets, quiffs and dye-jobs. But behind the dazzling facade is a serious cook who won a Michelin star within a year of opening his first restaurant. After studying classical and modern ballet, O’Hare took a degree in aerospace engineering before deciding on a career in the professional kitchen. He worked at Seaham Hall in Durham and John Burton-Race’s Landmark Hotel in London and Noma in Copenhagen before taking his first head chef position at The Blind Swine in York.

‘We focus on familiar flavours, step it up a few notches and present it in an avant garde way’

Opened on the top floor of the stylish and upmarket Flannel’s department store in central Leeds in 2014, The Man Behind the Curtain (named after both The Wizard of Oz and a song of the same name by obscure American heavy metal band Valient Thorr) with its grey resin floor, wool-upholstered Masculo chairs and outsized canvases by modern artist Schoph Schophield, gained critical acclaim from the offset. In her Guardian review, Marina O’Loughlin noted O’Hare’s ‘manic creativity’ and called a pork jowl encrusted with flakes of dehydrated squid ink as ‘flawless’ and ‘brilliant’.

Diners at The Man Behind the Curtain only see a menu when they are presented with a bill, so must put their trust in O’Hare’s culinary genius. “People say I put odd flavours together – I don’t,” O’Hare told Restaurant magazine. “We focus on familiar flavours, step it up a few notches and present it in an avant garde way.”

O’Hare has appeared on BBC TV’s Great British Menu where his dish ‘Emancipation’, a modernist take on fish and chips, was served at the finale banquet celebrating the Women’s Institute, and has also appeared as a judge on the programme. He was a chef mentor on Yes Chef, a day time cookery show, also on the BBC. In 2016, O’Hare was appointed creative director of GG Hospitality, owned by footballers Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs. His projects with the company include The Rabbit in the Moon restaurant in Manchester’s National Football Museum and two hotel projects in the city.