I was so excited to be able to talk to Guillaume Brahimi in the month his Melbourne restaurant, Bistro Guillaume celebrates its 10 year anniversary. I knew all about Guillaume having watched with delight, his five minute Plat du Tour episodes which aired on SBS during the Tour de France and featured famous dishes from the regions the cyclists were passing through. Guillaume's love of cooking and his love of sharing French cuisine was palpable. Guillaume was born in Paris and knew from a young age that he wanted to be a chef. He did his apprenticeship at the iconic Aux Charpentiers restaurant, which closed in 2016, but had opened in the 1860s. By the early 1900s this was the place for young chefs to learn the trade. So can you imagine doing an apprenticeship there?! He then worked at the Tour d'Argent and then Jamin under Joel Robuchon, a celebrated French chef who is described as having rewritten the rules of fine dining. He found a very apt student in Guillaume who rose through the ranks to become sous chef before announcing that he was leaving for Australia. Robuchon famously told him that he had never heard of that establishment, but off Guillaume went for Sydney in the nineties. Nothing could hold him back and he successfully ran Bennelong in the Sydney Opera House for 14 years from 2001. With all this in mind, you can understand my excitement. Our chat was very brief, because understandably, Guillaume is a busy man. He was on the way to pick up his son and would be celebrating his daughters 15thbirthday that day as well. But it was absolutely a case of quality over quantity and Guillaume came up with gold.
Bonjour Guillaume.
Bonjour.
I wanted to say, bon anniversaire, car ca se fete, dix ans, quand meme. Happy anniversary; ten years is certainly something to celebrate in restaurant lives, isn't it?
You're so right, Jo. It's a long time for any restaurant in the world and especially in Australia. Tell me ten restaurants that have been open for ten years without looking at any guides. It'd be challenging.
Absolutely, so a big congratulations to you. What is your secret? I look at your menu and it is so beautiful and so classic. Is that the secret?
That's a big question. It's about enjoying what you do and being surrounded by people who love what they do. I have been very lucky in Melbourne to have people who are very loyal to the Bistro and to me and we grow together.
It is important to never compromise on the quality of the produce. That is something we are very into in what we do. We are not cooking lobster every day, but when we source our chicken and our vegetables and our beef, we get the best possible available.
Absolutely, and I have read about your philosophy of bistronomy which really seems to fit with Melbourne's idea of excellent quality produce producing extremely well executed, but simple dishes.
People laugh about bistronomy, but it is so important for me because I have been lucky to have fine dining restaurants and I have worked for some great chefs and also had Bennelong at the Opera House for 14 years which was fine dining, so the philosophy, the approach is the same but you are just dealing with different produce. I always say to my team, lamour du travail bien fait, which means the love of a job well done. That's what I got from Joel Robuchon who I worked for in France. If you don't have that, I don't know, because I have it. And I'm not saying it is easy every day, no, but the satisfaction of cooking a dish well and the satisfaction of seeing the product delivered every day, the satisfaction of seeing the restaurant full, the happiness I get when the dish comes back to the kitchen and someone has used a bread roll to finish it and mop up the juices, they are the things that make me happy. And after 10 years, I can't forget my partners; Crown Resorts have been great to be in partnership with and the whole team.
And that's important, in terms of hospitality. Just to go back to the bistronomy idea, and how simple things done well are so good, I can see on your anniversary menu that you have your Paris mash, and there are only three ingredients in the mash, aren't there?
Oh yeah. Don't ask me the amounts! It's potato with a bit of milk and a lot of butterbut I am not asking you to have Paris mash every day.
No, I don't think we could have it every day, could we? Although I wouldn't mind it.
I always say to my team, lamour du travail bien fait, which means the love of a job well done. That’s what I got from Joel Robuchon who I worked for in France. If you don’t have that, I don’t know, because I have it. And I’m not saying it is easy every day, no, but the satisfaction of cooking a dish well and the satisfaction of seeing the product delivered every day, the satisfaction of seeing the restaurant full, the happiness I get when the dish comes back to the kitchen and someone has used a bread roll to finish it and mop up the juices, they are the things that make me happy.
I also loved seeing you talk about the dishes you were making on Plat du Tour on SBS; and I loved the simplicity of those dishes and how very French they are: Ratatouille and Pissaladire and your love for food just really came through that.
Oh yeah. It's very exciting because Plat du Tour is coming back. We did some more because, again, we are not travelling and it will be about more wintery dishes in France but I can't tell you any more than that but you will love it.
I can't wait.
Well, I hope you love it as much as I did cooking it.
I'm sure I will. And Guillaume, you told me about your inherent love for cooking. Was that always there? Did you grow up knowing you wanted to be a chef?
Oh yes. I was 14 when I started. My daughter is turning 15 today and I certainly don't want her in the kitchen. But I was lucky because I don't come from a family of cooks or a family of hospitality and in those days, cooking was not a fashionable profession. There was no MasterChef, there were no celebrity chefs; being a chef was a hard industry, you weren't in the spotlight. I was lucky because that was what I wanted to do.
And to start off at a place like Aux Charpentiers as an apprenticethat's the epitome of a place to do an apprenticeship because it is pretty much where cooking apprenticeships started.
Oh yeah, Aux Charpentiers is the real thing. That's where they teach you the value of work and the respect of the produce. I was lucky to come through teaching like that. Do you respect asparagus the same way you respect the lobster because you think the lobster is more expensive? I was lucky to learn about that and about working hard.
I agree. Guillaume, I don't want to keep you because you have a lot on and you are picking up your son, but thank you so much for your time and for what you have shared with me.
I hope to see you at the Bistro.
I will be there. And all the best for the celebratory dinners on the 25th and 27th of May. Bonne journee et bonne continuation.
Merci, merci beaucoup. Bonne soire!
Crown Towers, Riverwalk, Melbourne