“ Before coming to Australia I was living in the south of France finishing my Uni studies. I was in the Riviera and spending lots of time in Toulon which is a harbour area where we have a fig farm and an olive orchard. I lived there for about 10 years farming figs and olives. My dad sort of took a chance and fell into it. He bought properties and fell in love with the olives and the figs. That’s how the story started and it’s a part of my life that’s on hold. The figs are called Black Genoa from the city of Genoa and the breed is quite ancient. It’s grown in Sollies which is the capital of France for figs. Figure de Sollies is a label of quality and standard which we have. We are organic AOC and there are only 2 or 3 of us in the world. It’s part of my cultural background to carry that south of France history even though I wasn’t born there. I felt at home there as I do here.
My cultural background is actually the east of France. I grew up in a town called Besancon with many forests and rivers and lots of cheese, trout and mushrooms My idea about food is about foraging food. We used to fossick for all sorts of mushrooms in the forest. My grandmothers place had Morel mushrooms which are quite rare. All that culture around food, berries, picking up walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts. Everybody hunts. Everyone has chicken, rabbits, snails, frogs. That is my food history and where I learnt how to treat and consider food. It comes from nature and it’s barely transformed so we can eat it. The ecology and the reason why we eat those foods is what interests me. When you have to hunt and go and pick it up yourself you don’t waste it. You use it or you don’t take it. We should respect all food.
I came to Australia in 2004 and worked as a scientist for CSIRO in Canberra. I was doing Molecular Biology on cotton so I was involved in farming here. When I was working as a scientist I would volunteer after work in a Gastronomic restaurant. I worked for free so they could show me what to do and how a restaurant worked.
After I finished my Scientist job I bought a restaurant in the countryside of Canberra in a little town called Braidwood. I bought an old decrepit restaurant which was almost abandoned and I refurbished it. It took me two years on my own and then I opened it on my own. In the end we had people travelling from Sydney to come and dine. I only did traditional French. It was really good but really hard. Long hours and no other life. I had no hobbies, too busy for friends, too much. It was killing me so I had to let it go. It stayed in my mind how could I do a restaurant and have a life as well.
I’ve always been passionate about cooking since I was a boy. I started when I was 8. My two grandmas taught me how to cook. My mums mum is a traditional French person. She was a big family person and always cooking. She taught me the French background.
My other grandma is from Syria and she has 12 kids. She lives in Sydney and she fed her 12 kids all her life and now a grandchild and a great grandchild so she has an enormous family to cook for. My Middle Eastern cooking comes from her. I have a good taste memory so I remember what she cooked for me when I was a kid, the smell, the flavours. When I cook something I know where I am standing in relation to her so I can get the same taste. She inspired me for her strength and her attitude to food basically and feeding people. She can’t speak French or English. She only speaks Arabic so we’ve never been able to communicate that much but through food I was able to do things with her like cooking together. I don’t think I was naturally a good cook, I worked hard. I took courses and I spent a lot of time cooking.
I moved to Lismore in 2015 and I bought Palate at the Gallery. My partner is from Lismore and we wanted to have a baby so we decided to move to Lismore to raise our child and be close to my partners family. I was looking for something to do and this was for sale. There was already a whole team here. There was a kitchen team, front of house team. We had the staff so I didn’t go in the kitchen that much up until the floods. Our baby came in December 2015 and we’d only just taken over the restaurant in the September so it was hectic. 2016 was really tough as well and then we had the flood which was really tough.
After the flood and other things happened it prompted me to not let anyone in the kitchen any more as a chef. I couldn’t get down here during the flood. I lost everything. For me it was time to get back to the kitchen, to control the food that I make, to make sure that when I serve people I can say it’s as good as I can be. If it is not to their taste at least I can do something about it. I can learn what people like. If people aren’t happy they just don’t come back. People don’t only come to eat the food they come to see the person. Back home in France we don’t say, ‘We are off to a restaurant ‘we say ‘We are going to eat at Robert’s or Michael’s.’ We chat to him, he tells his life, sits down and has a glass with us. That is what the spirit of a restaurant is. A sense of actual hospitality and that’s what I like here. I can see when people get their food, their reactions on presentation.
It is much simpler now than before as I don’t want any unhappy people. I am not going to take risks. I am doing food I can do well and French traditional is easy to understand. We’ll keep the price as gentle as we can and it’s working really well. In the last 2 weeks since we’ve reopened we’ve been so busy.
It took until a week before we reopened where we knew we actually could reopen. For three weeks we cleaned, polished, painted, fought with insurance which didn’t come and I thought I can’t start again with no help and then it came together all at once. All the staff were amazing. They all came in and helped.
In a way the flood has been a blessing because it took a lot of our problems away, it took the mud away. It was a big clean up even in my head. A fresh start, new people, new inspiration and new attitude.
I like Lismore because it’s a living city. People live here, work here and they do things here. It’s rich in feelings and history and it’s happening as well. There’s lots of things going on, proper things, real things.”