Meet the Chef: Conor Halpenny, head chef at Square Restaurant in Dundalk

This story appeared in the Louth Life magazine in spring 2025

The fast growing popularity of Square in Dundalk, which might be reflected in the current expansion of the Market Square restarant, as well as being crowned Best Restaurant in Louth at the Irish Restaurant Awards Leinster Regional Final, is undoubtedly down to the skills, and the outlook, of its head chef Conor Halpenny.

Conor discovered his love for cooking at an early age. “I suppose it was very early on, I know its very cliché, but I got a kitchen off Santy when I was two, and its sort of been in me from a young age. I was always baking and cooking at home, cooking with Mam especially.

“I went to a cookery course in the summer, I think it was sixth class in Ardee Community School, and that was sort of the first time I was shown how to do things, so that sort of sparked it off. And then for LCVP (Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme) work experience in secondary school in Ardee, I went to Dooley's [Restaurant] on work experience and I got a job and that was it. I worked weekends then.

While he doesn't think you need a certain kind of personality to be a chef, Conor believes, “you need dedication. It isn't for everybody, and for people who like cooking at home, chucking them into a professional kitchen is a different environment. It is a high stress environment so people who do strive under pressure do well in it.”

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Staying grounded might be one of those soft skills that is helping Conor succeed. “We're only cooking food, it's not life or death. I always say that to a lot of people. We are only cooking food and if people have to wait an extra five minutes, just wait an extra five minutes. I'd rather do it right than send out sub par food.

“Especially here in Dundalk in Square, because it is an open kitchen, if you're sitting down eating your meal, and you see the chefs running aroung like headless chickens, it will make you uneasy, so even if you are panicking, you have to just sort of panic inside, and just not show it. The customers can see eveything so you don't want to be panicking them when they're sitting down for their meal. It has to be calm.”

More people entering the industry is something Conor would welcome. “We have such a bad name our industry – that it's unsociable, those sort of things. But we do four day weeks in the Square. We do 42 hours a week, we don't do more than that. You can make it sociable. It's such an amazing industry, where you can go anywhere in the world, and you probably know someone who worked with someone somewhere, it's a small industry. I would just try encourage more people to get into it.”

Trying to pick out a favourite dish for Conor is difficult. “I enjoy cooking them all, I wouldn't put them on the menu if I didn't enjoy cooking them. We cook with the seasons.

“Corn ribs are something that I really like. It's one of our snacks, a super simple snack. It's absolutely delicious. Fried corn ribs with a fermented sriracha sauce. I swear to god, it's lip smackingly good. It's one of those dishes – we get the nod that we're fine dining an awful lot but we're not. We're just simple food done really well and I think dishes like that represent what we do as well.”