The Lost Interviews, No. 1: Jean-Christophe Novelli

In a short series of 'forgotten interviews' that never saw the light of day, here's one from 2008...


Jean-Christophe Novelli

Jean-Christophe makes women swoon, men jealous and everybody hungry. But it hasn’t all been sweetness and light for the French chef and TV personality. He went bankrupt in 1999, losing all of his London restaurants. On the bright side, the same year, he was voted “the world’s fifth most alluring man” by Harpers & Queen magazine. James Brennan spoke to him about his financial meltdown his image and his unfortunate spat with Sunday Times food critic Michael Winner. 

Tell me about the Novelli Academy.

When I lost everything about nine years ago, it took me about a year or two to get back on my feet. And I thought to myself, I’ve been in the trade now for 30 years, and I wanted to be more involved with the trade, with food, but in my own way. So I got the kitchen table from the garden, brought it inside the farm and started inviting people. I did it for my family and my friends - they could come into my kitchen and it was fantastic. But I started from the age of 14 and learnt everything I could for myself - so I thought it was time to pass that on. It became very popular, so I had to get another table. The more I taught them, the more I leant, and I enjoyed that. I used to go to work for 14 hours a day, six days a week, and I said I didn’t want to do that any more.

How did you get into such severe financial trouble in the late 1990s?

I grew very quickly. You see, the secret in business is to make sure you’ve got money when you start the business. But I started with 500 quid. Then I became popular and opened seven (restaurants) in one go on my own. The day I left the kitchen it was a big mistake. I was acting like a chef rather than a businessman - with emotion, and making the wrong decision. Nothing was calm, everything was affected. And I couldn’t cope (laughs)! I learnt - if it had been one or two places, then fine. But it was too much. After that I bought a fourteenth century farmhouse and let people come to my kitchen. And I’m just about to sell the format in Los Angeles.   

How badly will the global economic crisis affect restaurants?

It’s tough, very tough. Nobody knows what’s going on. And especially now people are more involved with food, they can cook. Before, a lot of people could hardly cook an omelette! Now they are miles away - with so much more experience. There’s a different way of surviving, and I think it’s going to be hard, but I don’t know anybody who’s not affected. I know people who are thinking of closing on Mondays, all day, and opening on Tuesday for lunch. But I knew something like this would happen - I don’t have a crystal ball, but I’m very sensitive because of my mistakes. And when there is terrible weather (in the UK) also, it’s awful.

What did you learn from working with Keith Floyd in the ‘80s?

I learnt to interact with people, actually, to come out of your shell. And not to act too intense with your cooking. I learnt his sense of humour. And don’t forget that before I worked with him I was his friend - before I came to the UK. It was a good relationship - in fact, I’m the only one he never sacked! 

Does your heart-throb image ever get in the way of the food?

Ah, I don’t think it does. If it did, do you think I would be able to work like I did all my life? When I was in Paris, I worked every day doing 200-300 covers at lunchtime. And my dream was to come to Great Britain, and then America one day. And I stuck to my dream. I just came back from Los Angeles and I just finished my TV series, which is coming out next year, in February. It’s going to be massive. And that’s why I’m going to start my cookery school over there, to expand it.

You famously barred the food critic Michael Winner from one of your restaurants. Why was this?

To be criticised is one thing, but it has to be constructive. It has to be fair. I don’t like to waste my time with anybody like this. I’d always had time for him and treated him like a customer, but one day there was a picture of this chap in front of one of my establishments saying how bad it was. How would you feel? Frankly, I couldn’t even be bothered to argue with him. Then he came back years later - ha, ha - and I jumped on him. I’d organised photographers outside, and kindly stopped him. It was not for me, it was for the people he had hurt. He tried to demolish my staff and myself. My new receptionist did not organise things when he walked through the door and he went bananas! My restaurant manager was in tears - in fact, he left. He was one of the best.

What do you think of food critics?

I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but I have been reviewed by hundreds and hundreds of people, food critics, journalists, the lot. And I’d never been criticised like this in my life. I’ve had far more great reviews by people who I have never even met. Journalists come to my restaurant and they give false names. Matthew Fort (food editor for The Guardian)? I thought he was ex-army. I cook for customers, not food critics. Actually, I spoke too long about it - that’s not good. I’ve wasted my time and your time (laughs).

You have restaurants in the UK and more in the pipeline - any lans to expand in Dubai?

I don’t know because the problem I have is my farm, my academy is doing a lot better than I thought. It’s unbelievable. And think there’s something in people coming to your house, your farm, to you. It’s an extraordinary feeling. I love it. But I don’t know - Frankly I have to be very cautious with my time. I have just bought some land in Spain to get my own olive oil. I I’m looking at getting cooking into rehabilitation, for drug addicts, alcoholics, anorexics. Anyone with a problem. I think cooking is great therapy. 

Image 'borrowed' from www.jeanchristophenovelli.com  

Benihana vs. Blogger: a kerfuffle in Kuwait

“Waiter, where's my pie crust?” 

“It’s a soft opening, sir.”

The “Kuwaitgate” restaurant blogger saga has prompted me to say a few words on food bloggers and restaurants. 

In case you didn’t know, a blogger in Kuwait (www.248am.com) wrote a slightly unfavourable review of newly-opened Benihana, the well-known Japanese restaurant chain. The restaurant responded by taking legal action. You might be in favour of the blogger, or even the restaurant, but in my opinion both are at fault to some extent.

Let’s look at it from the blogger’s side first. If a blogger is serious about reviewing restaurants and wants people to take those reviews seriously, he should never review a place that’s just opened (unless invited to do so). Wait at least a month before going in there and letting off your six-shooters.

The reason I say this is because almost every restaurant in the world needs at least a few weeks to get up to speed - just like you probably did in every job you started. 

As someone who’s reviewed restaurants professionally, I have occasionally been sent to a restaurant too soon by an editor. The verdict was always the same - there were teething troubles, it might get better, it might not. It was a pointless exercise.

There was no sense at all in reviewing the place, since it might improve over the coming weeks - or it might even get worse - but the review would remain online for months, perhaps a year, without a clear and definitive judgement. Or with an unfair one.  

Better to give the restaurant a short grace period, then any judgement you make will be based on a restaurant that’s functioning as well as it’s ever likely to.

Newspapers like the New York Times give a restaurant a grace period before reviewing. They’re a reputable outfit, wouldn’t you say? If you want your blog and reviews to be taken seriously, you should perhaps do the same. In the Kuwaiti blogger’s defence, he did state that the restaurant was newly opened. But he carried on regardless.    

You may argue that if a restaurant has opened to the public, and it’s charging full price, then it’s fair game. Perhaps. As someone who’s been to far too many brand new restaurants, I know to avoid a newly opened place for at least a month, whether I’m reviewing it or not. 

You may call for the restaurant to charge a reduced rate if it’s on a ‘soft opening’. Maybe you have a point. In fact that would be a good idea. But remember those first weeks in your job? Did you work for half your salary? So why expect a waiter to do that, or a chef, or a restaurateur? There’s a case to be made for restaurants - especially ones in the Middle East - to train their staff properly, so that they can hit the ground running. I support that. But I’ll be giving any new restaurant a few weeks to get its act together all the same if I’m reviewing it - and especially if I’m paying for it.  

Perhaps it’s a symptom of today’s society: we all want instant gratification, we want everything now. Be smart - resist all temptation to visit a new restaurant in its first month. Leave that to corporate lunchers who can slap it on expenses. 

I think I’ve stressed the point enough.

Which brings us onto the restaurant. Benihana Kuwait might feel aggrieved that a blogger can say nasty things about its food just after it’s opened. But blogging is just the modern-day equivalent of word of mouth - it just shouts louder. Just think what all the other people who dined at Benihana in its opening week thought about its food, and told their friends.

The way to deal with this was not by threatening the blogger, who has a perfect right to say whether his meal was good or not. They should have left a message on the blog, explaining that they weren’t quite up to speed yet, and inviting the blogger back to the restaurant once things were better. The blogger would no doubt have returned, written a much more favourable update, complimented Benihana on its excellent customer service and everybody would have lived happily ever after. Blogs can help restaurants too, you know. 

Instead, Benihana have decided to drag this through the courts and drag its own name into the mire in the process. It will not win itself any friends by doing this. It has already won itself a load of negative publicity, when it could all have been so different. Conversely, the blog has had great publicity out of this. 

It’s an example of disastrous PR. Yet all food bloggers and restaurants can learn from it. 

Benihana should drop their case immediately, say sorry and invite the blogger back to the restaurant for a slap up meal. We all know passions run high in the restaurant world, but it’s time to cool off. In fact I invite them onto this blog - neutral ground - to initiate the peace process. Prove to everybody that - like all restaurants - all it needed was a few weeks to start firing on all cylinders. Then you’d have a happy restaurant, a happy chef, a happy food blogger and a happy social networking community. 

Everyone’s a winner.

He's here, he's there, he's Pierre Gagnaire.

Recently, I had the great pleasure of accompanying Pierre Gagnaire to one of the Emirati breakfasts at the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding in Bur Dubai. It was a chance for the legendary French chef to learn a little more about Emirati culture and food. And it was an opportunity for me to stuff myself silly with a load of luqaimat dumplings drenched in date syrup (not exactly a bowl of Fruit ‘n’ Fibre with low-fat yoghurt).


I was there on behalf of Esquire magazine in the Middle East, the idea being that the master chef would gain inspiration from his petite dejeuner à la UAE, before returning to the kitchen at Reflets Par Pierre Gagnaire to create something suitably impressive from a handful of dates and a bunch of chickpeas.


The breakfasts are held every week to offer tourists and anybody else who fancies it a chance to find out more about the culture and customs of the UAE, while sampling some genuine and reasonably good Emirati food. We sat, we ate and we listened intently...

Reflets' restaurant director Etienne Haro discusses the merits of 'kahwa' Arabic coffee, while monsieur Gagnaire demonstrates how to administer a crafty backhander to the head of a bald gentleman.

Back in the kitchen, chef Gagnaire cowers behind two intimidating-looking bottles of camel's milk...

The chef surrounds himself with an array of traditional Emirati ingredients: chickpeas, dates, cardamom, KFC bargain bucket, Dunkin' Donuts, Vimto.... sorry, got carried away there...

Gagnaire and Reflets' head chef Olivier Biles take to the stove.

Et voila! Eggs Maktoum!

With the pressure off, the lads clown around with a bottle of camel's milk, while PG captures the moment for a photo album entitled "I never thought I'd live to see the day...."


I have to say, I was impressed with the end result. I certainly hadn't imagined that such a hotch-potch of ingredients - chickpeas, dates, honey, camel's milk, coffee, cardamom and a solitary poached egg - could be so, well, interesting. In his own inimitable style, Gagnaire had created something approaching good Emirati food.


Of course, just typing the words “good Emirati food” has caused smoke to come billowing out the back of my laptop. Even the most patriotic local will tell you it’s as rare as braised brontosaurus breast in the restaurants and cafes of the UAE. Mysterious, misunderstood and missing from most menus, it’s a cuisine that the vast majority of non-Emiratis will know practically nothing about.


The best way to discover decent Emirati food it is to somehow blag an invitation into the home of a UAE national. Alternatively, the Sheikh Mohammed Centre’s weekly breakfasts and lunches will give you a full belly and one or two cultural insights to help you understand why you’re eating mini doughnut balls and sweet vermicelli noodles at 10 o’clock in the morning.


Failing that, just grab hold of a Michelin-star chef and see what he can rustle up with a bag of dried fruit, some legumes and the milk of an even-toed ungulate.


See Esquire Middle East, February edition, for the full Pierre Gagnaire story.