Au revoir 2013

As I look back a year ago it amuses me to think that I still had no idea where I would be today. My husband and I were still open to a place to settle in the Philippines and though Cebu was on the map it was not the one and only choice. This year has been tough for many people, and very eventful for me personally, with an engagement, a marriage, an intercontinental move, a new business, an earthquake and a Supertyphoon. Through it all I count my blessings, most especially for family and friends both near and far, and the extremely warm welcome we received in Cebu, our new home.

The restaurant has been challenging, as expected, but not in the way I thought it would be. My greatest disappointment is the amount of time I spend actually cooking, which is much less than I was looking forward to. Basically most of my time is spent doing admin work, which is the one thing I wanted to get away from. I am constantly on the phone texting and calling suppliers to place orders, confirm them, follow up on them and complain about them. Other than that there is all the paperwork surrounding the accounting and registration, blablabla I will not bore you with this. And of course the marketing, which could take up my entire day if I had that luxury.

I am looking forward to 2014 as not only another year full of surprises (both good and bad) but also the year I say good bye to my thirties. At least I can say that I lived every moment of that to the very fullest! I am wishing for a bigger heart, more wisdom, patience and kindness to the people around me with a special thought to my husband and daughter who have to bear my mood swings on a daily basis. I love you all… Happy New Year!!!

After the Bohol earthquake, supertyphoon Haiyan/Yolanda swept through the Visayas, which is the central part of the Philippines, narrowly avoiding Cebu, and leaving a trail of massive destruction in its wake. So much has already been written on this subject that I don’t wish to dwell on it; I only would like to mention that the response from the private sector has been amazing and heartwarming. Nevertheless, it will take years for the areas affected to recover, and we can just hope that the newly rebuilt areas will be safer and more prosperous.

Back to the Café, where I have had to look back on my first experiences in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants in France. I remember thinking to myself that I never wanted to have one such star, should I one day have my own place. The way it affects the chef/owner was just painful to watch; the pressure is immense. The French take their food way to seriously (I am sometimes guilty of this) – as they do their language, and, let’s face it, sometimes themselves (I can say this, I am French!). It’s not only about taste; it’s about presentation, timing, temperature, harmony, and knowledgeable wait-staff (I’m talking fine dining here).

I used to find ludicrous the whole military–style system wherein the chef is always right, and there was only one response to anything s/he had to say, and that response was “Oui, chef!” You had to say it like you meant it, more like a bark really, than an utterance. So I find myself in my kitchen, with my cook, asking her to do something a certain way, and deep down inside I am expecting a heartfelt “Oui, chef!” and instead I get a lengthy explanation in Tagalog about why she chose to do it this way and not another. This happens again and again. I have to take a pause because I just don’t know what to say.  All of a sudden, everything makes sense – the mean chefs and the screaming and the fearful slaves in the galley from my internships. Because when you start out at the bottom of the ladder in a French kitchen, that’s pretty much what you are (unless you are born into a family of famous chefs like Anne-Sophie Pic). If each of the members of the “brigade” were to discuss the chef’s orders, it would be total anarchy, and impossible to send any food out of the kitchen. Of course we are in Cebu, my team consists in me and my cook, so the situation is incomparable. Still, I don’t know what to say. Filipinos do not like to address issues head on; they find it offensive. An employee who up till a small incident was happy, would sometimes rather resign or leave than have a difficult discussion.

So I take a deep breath, listen to why my cook did something a certain way, and calmly explain to her how I would like to have it done and why. This I will have to do over and over again, since I am not in France, in a fancy restaurant with twelve cooks attending four different kitchen stations. And it is just as well.

A quiet opening before the storm

Café de Geneve quietly opened its doors yesterday, 6 November 2013, after a little over two months of a challenging renovation and design process and five months after our move from Switzerland to the Philippines. The result is a cosy, neat interior (still a work in progress), and as our first born, I think it quite resembles its young parents. Lots of excitement, pain, sweat, tears and love went into this modest little project, and I look forward to the many hours I will be devoting to it in the months to come. Our new friends in Cebu have been incredibly supportive in providing suggestions, contacts, and moral support along the way, and I am so very grateful to you all!

Funny how over dinner last week with one of my particularly supportive friends here, she advised me – speaking from experience – to take a little break before opening the restaurant doors. Both my husband and I had been through a lot over the past few weeks and I was both exhausted and tense. But I had already made arrangements with my small team on a start date and did not want to postpone it. Then yesterday, our opening day, news of the supertyphoon erupted, as well as a Government order to stop work at noon today to prepare for its landfall… so I called my staff not to come in, and since we had reservations we opened for lunch but closed right after. In the end, I got my little break. Now let’s hope that the storm looses strength before going over the country...

What they don't teach you at culinary school

When I graduated from culinary school in Marseilles three years ago, all my friends starting calling me chef. Somehow it made me uncomfortable, because as a fresh graduate with only four month-long internships under my belt, I was a novice, or commis, which is at the very bottom of the kitchen hierarchy in France. I later realized that in other countries such as the United States or the Philippines, one could potentially be a chef straight out of culinary school.

Now that I am about to become the chef of my own kitchen and my entire staff of one, I am realizing that though I learned an awful lot from my course, very little of it has been applicable to my journey in the Philippines, opening my very own place with my husband. For example, what are you supposed to do when you find out that garbage is only collected once a week on your street? Or when you realize your street is so tiny it is not even on Google maps? These are just some little things (not so little really) we have been dealing with these past few weeks. Add those to the fact that the renovations are nearly a month behind schedule, and on top of that the earthquake that shook the Visayas last week and whose aftershocks still keep taking us by surprise… well, we were looking for an adventure and we certainly have found it. On the other hand, the place is looking great, more and more like a real establishment… now all we need is to start cooking in it!

My very special physical

Renovations are well under way in our little café. Everything is so new and challenging but equally exciting; from going over the plans with the architect to testing dishes and imagining what the interior will look like once finished.  

People always say that once you become your own boss you no longer have a life of your own and I am experiencing this first hand. Though in my previous employment positions I sometimes woke up early morning (or even stayed up late at night) thinking of a case in the office, it was more of an exception than a rule. Now the project is pretty much what I think of when I wake up and before I sleep. Even when I am relaxing, the project is at the back of my head (“what color combinations look good together?” “what is the pricing or what are people lining up for?”). My husband on the other hand is not at all in the same frame of mind, and I truly admire him for being able to focus on a task at hand and then completely disconnect and relax a few hours later. Truly an asset! 

I still remember as early back as a year and a half ago when we were colleagues and he used to coax me into this crazy idea of relocating overseas and starting a business… and here I am now, getting a very “special” physical exam at the City Health Department, a requirement for staff working in the food and beverage industry!

Road map

One of the things about living in a tropical country are the bugs you can catch. Both my husband and daughter, coming from Europe, had upset stomachs at some point after moving here. I thought I was stronger, but boy was I wrong. After enduring a gut-wrenching stomach flu for the past 10 days I decided to finally see a doctor. After all, I am the first to tell my family to go see a doctor when they feel bad. So now I’m on antibiotics and have to get some lab tests results later. The whole thing has really slowed me down as I am working, with my husband, to start our little business here in Cebu. 

When I am asked what am I doing here? There is no other option than to say: “We are opening a café.” People are usually excited about the prospect, as I have been, and still am. After all, leaving the routine and comfort of a regular paycheck back home to start something from scratch and be your own boss is something a lot of people only dream of doing (granted, I no longer had a regular paycheck back in Geneva!). It's been great meeting all these entrepreneurs here; Filipinos are really born entrepreneurs par excellence. Everyone has some sort of business or sideline or several bigger businesses, family-owned or start-ups. It's an interesting change of perspective from the International civil servant crowd from New York and Geneva, or my foodies from Marseilles, not that I love them any less!