Meet The Chef: Shane Magee

Enjoy a burger at Redhound Grille—whose opening has been pushed to around Memorial Day—and your six degrees of separation from the likes of U2, Steve Forbes and Princess Diana might be whittled down to two. Chef and owner Shane Magee has cooked for “countless” celebrities during his 25 years in the restaurant industry, he said, but he seems to keep a level head.

“To me, people are all the same,” Magee said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re rich or poor; if they’re in my restaurant, they’re going to have a good dinner.”

Magee grew up in Belfast, Ireland, eating typical Irish food and dreaming of becoming a pilot. It wasn’t until he got a kitchen job at Bunratty Castle in Ireland that he became really interested in cooking.

“Working in the kitchen, I got to see the cooking and producing and the final product,” Magee said. “I liked the pace of the kitchen staff; from that moment, I just loved it.”

Chef school was very much an eye-opener for Magee, who had grown up eating typical Irish food.

“My mom is a good cook by Irish standards, but everything is well-done”—to the point of being grey, Magee said. “When I first went to chef school, it was—oh my God—such a different thing to what my mother made. … You can do so much more with beef than roast or stew it, and it doesn’t all have to be well-done.”

Magee has worked in some of the best restaurants in France and England, before moving to the United States. Most recently, he was the chef and owner of Places! Bistro in Malvern, next to People's Light and Theatre.

“I love thinking about the food and pairing it—twisting it just a little bit to really make it my dish,” Magee said. “I like to wrap pork tenderloin in bacon that I’ve cured; or I’ll try beer-roasting a tenderloin with mac and cheese… I often put dishes together in my head before I put them on the plate. I think, ‘What can I do with that ingredient to make it alive?’”

It's clear from the way Magee talks about food that it is not just his career, but his passion. He enjoys creating and recreating, pairing dishes, and cooking extensively off the job. 

"As my wife says, it’s cooking first: I cook at home six or seven nights a week. I make my own bread. When you come to a barbecue at my house, it’s not hot dogs and burgers,” Magee said. “We’ll have T-bone steaks, center cut pork chops, or Chilean sea bass on the grill.”

If Magee could give home cooks any advice, it would be pretty simple: “Follow the recipe right: don’t try to cut corners,” he advised. “People try to rush things, but there’s a reason cooking is part chemistry and part art. Art is putting it on the plate and displaying it, and chemistry is why you do certain things that you do. If you’re cooking a roux, cook it right—and play with your cooking, but enjoy it. You’ve got to enjoy it.”

So what would Magee choose for his last meal?

“I would like a pork tenderloin wrapped in good bacon with dried cranberries, walnuts and mushrooms, good sourdough bread, baby white potatoes and grilled asparagus."

"Or else, a bloody good hamburger.”