Sports broadcaster, founder of @tentimesbraver, and the host of a brand new free-to-air show,The Ultimate Cycling Show, Orla Chennaoui is also a mum of two, breathwork practitioner and gym-goer now living in Amsterdam. Despite her jam-packed schedule, we managed to grab some time with Orla to chat all things food- from how it fuelled her athletic teens, to how she uses it to nourish her body and mind today. What's more, she reveals her argument for cooking to be considered a love language, as well as the unsuspecting meal that left her, quite literally, speechless.
"It was Sunday Dinner that was the most memorable for me..."
Growing up in Ireland, a lot of Orla's early memories are connected to food and family. Most of her dinners were home cooked, and eaten together as a family every evening. With her uncle being a farmer, the there was never a shortage of beef in the freezer. Looking back now, she realises what a privilege this was, as her parents never had to buy any meat. Her mom cooked specific dinners on different days of the week "so you knew what you're gonna get on a Monday, on a Tuesday, on a Wednesday...I'm sure we had minced beef with mashed potato and gravy and carrots on a Monday".
"It was the Sunday dinner that was the most memorable for me." She remembers going to mass in the in the morning, then returning home to a fully-cooked meal of steak or roast beef around the family table. Then of course, there was the dessert. Her Sunday dessert was Viennetta, and recalls arguing over the slice sizes with her three siblings. To finish the meal, they had Fifteens, a Northern Irish specialty that's "essentially a tray bake made up of 15 digestive biscuits, 15 marshmallows, and Nestle condensed milk. Some people would put glacé cherries as well", although she wasn't fond of those. "Then, it's all rolled in coconut and put in the fridge and sliced up into little tray bakes." She describes it as the highlight of her week. "I loved it."
"My mom took me to see a nutritionist when I was a teenager, which is probably a lot more common now than it was then..."
Throughout her teens, Orla was immersed in the world of athletics, winning the title of Junior Irish Triple Jump Champion two years in a row. Like many teenage girls, she was anaemic for a period of time, and struggled with her energy levels because of her many weekly commitments; Irish dancing, athletics, gymnastics, trampolining, to name a few. "I would quite often be wiped out, so my mom took me to see a nutritionist when I was a teenager, which is probably a lot more common now than it was then." She describes her mother as "very forward thinking like that."
And so, the nutritionist set Orla up with a healthy, but not too restrictive diet. "Instead of having cheese and onion crisps and chocolate for my lunch break, I would have oatcakes and fruit." She admits that like many children, she still had "lots of rubbish food as well, but certainly, an awareness of nutrition as opposed to diet was really important for me as a kid. And my mom would always make sure that we had boiled eggs with toast before going out in the morning. It was something that had to be nutritional and keep us going throughout the day. My athletics was fuelled very much by a proper, healthy diet."
"As soon as something becomes forbidden, it holds an extra magic to it."
Now, as a breathwork practitioner and gym-goer, Orla believes that food is hugely intertwined with wellness. "I have anxiety and I have done all my life and didn't realise it until quite late in my life." She pauses and chuckles. "Well, hopefully, I'm not late yet." She has learned about how food affects her mood, sleep, and anxiety levels: "If I have a lot of highly processed foods or a lot of sugar, then the crash I have afterwards will make me quite anxious. I also don't drink alcohol anymore because of the anxiety mostly but if I have lots of sugary drinks instead, then I also feel that sort of hungover feeling the next day."
However, while she's very aware of that link between sugar, her mood and her anxiety, she tries not to be obsessive about it, "I try to permit myself a little bit of everything. If I feel like having, you know, crisps or Doritos or something, I will have it..." But prefers to eat good food to feel better and doesn't deprive herself of anything, otherwise she'll want it more. "As soon as something becomes forbidden, it holds an extra magic to it."
"The sushi was so melt in your mouth, I almost cried with every bite. I couldn't talk."
Throughout her career in journalism, Orla has travelled around the world and got to try some wonderful food. "I think Rio is quite an exceptional country when it comes to street food. I love the culture and community of street food, so that appealed to me an awful lot." She describes Rio's meat barbecue restaurants and the traffic light system: "You have a little disc that you put in your table, and you have it at green if you want more meat brought over to your table, and then you turn it to red when you've had enough." She admits that with all the variety, cuts, and flavours available "it's really hard to turn that disc over to red."
Her husband is from Morocco, so she spends a lot of time there and loves the cuisine, in particular the tagines. "I became obsessed for a while with making my own chicken and lemon tagine or chicken and olive tagine." One eating experience that really took her by surprise, however, was in Japan, whilst covering the 2020 Olympic Games (that were actually held in 2021 due to COVID). She and her colleagues went sight-seeing to the famous crossing in Tokyo, and wanted to have some sushi. "But we hadn't booked anywhere. We didn't have much time, so we just went into a mall and sat down at a random restaurant. And given the setting, I was completely blown away by how amazing the sushi was. It looked like this very run of the mill regular strip mall kind of cafe. And yet, the sushi was so melt in your mouth, I almost cried with every bite. I couldn't talk. I was like, guys, we're just gonna have to sit and savour this... It was an experience that I've never forgotten. My mouth is watering now as I'm talking about it."
Out of everything though, she has to give her award for favourite cuisine to Italy. "I challenge you to find a bad meal in Italy. I think it's probably the best cuisine in the world."
"A proper pub roast. I'd say that's what I miss the most."
Now, Orla lives in Amsterdam and while the Dutch cuisine is quite simple, "In Amsterdam, it's different because it's a capital city. It's an international city so you can find a bit of everything. But even then, compared to London, certainly when I moved here six years ago, the cuisine was quite limited. So I missed a lot of the London food. One of the surprising things was I really missed a good Indian. And being Irish, I didn't grow up with Indian food. It was much more Chinese food where where I grew up, so I didn't eat Indian food, really, until I moved to England. And a proper Irish roast or British roast- That's definitely what I miss the most on a Sunday. I just crave that sitting down at the table, and we do it at home, obviously, but I love being able to go out to the pub, sit down at the table with your friends and your family, and, you know, take a couple of hours with a proper pub roast. I'd say that's what I miss the most."
"Even though I didn't grow up here, it's one of these desserts that tastes like home."
Her favourite Dutch snack is called kibbling, which is "basically just, deep fried chunks of white fish. And you'll get it in a little tray with a wooden fork and a bit of mayo or a fish sauce, and you eat it as you're walking along the beach. So I love kibbling, with a side of chips, obviously, always." Another favourite is broodje haring, a herring bread. "It's just pickled herring with, some finely chopped red onions, sometimes gherkins, and a really soft white bap. You have your white bread, but it doesn't taste unhealthy. It's herring and onions and it just tastes of the sea."
For a guilty snack, she enjoys a Dutch dessert called a Vla. "It comes in a milk carton, and it's almost like a custardy consistency. And you pour it into a bowl and eat it with a spoon, but it's quite thick. So it's a bit like a gloopy custard or like a really gloopy Crème Anglaise, and it comes in vanilla or chocolate or Dubbelvla, which is vanilla and chocolate together. Even though I didn't grow up here, it's one of these desserts that tastes like home. You know, it tastes like childhood." She pauses. "I love a good old bowl of Vla after dinner."
"It seems to be a national requirement that it must burn your tongue when you first bite into it..."
A Dutch meal she hasn't particularly warmed to is the typical lunch of "a very plain cheese sandwich and a glass of milk". She admits she's fine with using food as fuel to get yourself through the day, but she likes a bit of pleasure in her food, and so, finds that meal "a little bit depressing, to be honest."
Another snack that she thinks can be brilliant when it's done well is Bitterballen; small, deep-fried breaded balls of shredded meat. However, "it seems to be a national requirement that it must burn your tongue when you first bite into it. It has to be piping hot, and it's almost impossible to wait long enough for the Bitterballen to cool down to then eat them at a normal temperature." She admits that they "can be massively varied in terms of its quality. When they're good, they're amazing. But as a pub snack, and it's most often a pub snack, they can be quite dubious, shall I say..." She's never quite sure what the meat is inside.
"They call it the Theatre Of Fish, and it is quite literally a theatre..."
Some of her favourite Amsterdam foodie spots include "an incredible little empanada shop, in the Jordaan, which is called Renita, and it's run by an Argentinian woman and an her Italian husband." Another is "an incredible fish restaurant on the Rozengracht called La Pesca." After hearing a lot about it, she went for the first time recently and absolutely loved it. "You go in, and there's a fish market, essentially, at the front of the restaurant. You can choose as much different fish as you want, all laid out on ice. They will then weigh it for you so you know exactly how much you're going to pay before you even get to your table. Then there's a little bar area on your way to the table. They'll look at your order, and they'll help you match your drinks with the fish that you've chosen." As mentioned earlier, Orla doesn't drink alcohol, but she ordered a gorgeous nonalcoholic Riesling that worked perfectly with her fish. They bring over the dishes as and when they're ready, a lot of them barbecued and quite simple. "They call it the Theatre Of Fish, and it is quite literally a theatre. If you were there for a first date, it would be really useful because you've got enough distraction that you can talk about what's going on around you, but the event bit of it doesn't take over because the food's still amazing."
Finally, there's a vegan patisserie called Saint Jean that she highly recommends. "I say it's vegan just to let you know, but you would never ever know because it is the best patisserie you'll maybe ever have." While it's become a TikTok sensation as of late, Orla swears by the hype. "The croissants, the cronuts, my god. I'm salivating. They do they they do the most incredible coffees as well."
"I'm not good at being hungry..."
As we speak, Orla is host of the brand new show, The Ultimate Cycling Show, along with juggling being a mom of two and being the founder of Ten Times Braver, a lifestyle and wellness brand. Needless to say, life is busy, and how she fuels those extra long, chaotic days is with breakfast, to start. "I always try to make sure I eat breakfast. I think that was ingrained in me as a kid. And then I do take snacks with me through the day because I can get quite hungry, and I'm not good at being hungry. Television productions can be quite guilty of forgetting that people have to eat, and I'm not down with that, so I always have a banana and a mandarin in my bag at the very least." She admits that they're not good things to keep in the bottom of a handbag, which acts as an incentive to eat them, if anything.
Nairn's Oatcakes, she thinks, are the best little treats to have because they're also tasty. "And then I will sometimes indulge in a health bar", she says with air quotes to accompany the word health. "They're full of sugars and everything, but the alternative is sugar and crisps. In studio, a lot of the time, we'll have whole selections of Wotsits and Monster Munch and Maltesers- all the good things that you want to eat, but you know will make you feel horrendous."
"Cooking can be a love language..."
Back at home, Orla's husband is brilliant in the kitchen, "so he actually these days does most of the cooking, which I love because I also feel like cooking can be a love language. I love cooking for people, but it's one of the things I really appreciate if somebody cooks for me. If I'm cooking, I would do a roast chicken. I think a roast chicken is just so homely and wonderful, and I'll have that with mashed potato, and carrots and gravy and whatever other veg. If I'm being really quick, I'd probably just stick some salmon fillets in the air fryer with some vegetables or a cheesy chicken pasta bake." A one effort meal, of sorts. "So one chicken in the oven, one drawer of the air fryer or one bake of pasta, and you're done."
"My daughter was going to become vegetarian at one stage, but decided she couldn't give up her nana's spaghetti bolognese."
When the weekend arrives, home cooked meals reign supreme. "I mean, we love our takeaways. We will indulge in a takeaway pizza every now and again. We've got some amazing pizzerias near us. But I love a home cooked dinner. So my husband, most Sundays, will do his special spaghetti bolognese. We'll all sit around the dining table, me and my husband and my two kids. And that's our real treat. If my mom is over, she comes over to help with the kids a lot, and she's an amazing cook. Her spaghetti bolognese, we have this sort of competition-". She stops in her tracks and laughs, admitting that it's not quite a competition at all. "My mom wins. But my kids always tease my husband that it's his spagbol is good, but it's not quite nana good. My daughter was actually going to become vegetarian at one stage, but then decided she couldn't give up her nana's spaghetti bolognese."
"You had to eat quick or don't eat."
We finish our chat laughing over an old TikTok of Orla partaking in 'Fat Thursday", the last Thursday before Lent, and a day celebrated in Poland that encourages the rapid eating of doughnuts. Orla demolished her doughnut in an impressive time, which she puts down to "being one of four in an Irish family, where you had to eat quick or don't eat."
Regardless, this year she won't be partaking in "Fat Thursday", and admits she had never heard of it before their trip to Poland. However, "as kids, my mom would always make the pancakes on pancake Tuesday, getting the buttermilk out. We did lent, as children, so it was very much our last treat for the next forty days." Her husband is brilliant at doing pancakes, and does pancakes for the kids most weekends. "And then what I usually do these days is make the kids fajitas on pancake Tuesday as a bit of a nod to it. So I'll maybe do chicken fajitas, and then he can do pancake desserts." Sounds like a good compromise to us!
The Ultimate Cycling Show will be available to watch for free on Quest in the UK and Ireland on Thursdays at 10pm with a repeat on 9am on Saturdays. Presented by the expert cycling duo of Orla Chennaoui and Adam Blythe. It’s also available to stream on demand on discovery+.
