F&B trends come and go, but this concept stays

it's very important to work with local products for different reasons the first thing is that yeah you have to be proud on your roots where you're coming from and like we i'm living in flanders in belgium we've got a lot of lot of very perfect products in the area so i don't understand why you're gonna buy your products on the other side of the world if you've got it in your garden welcome to the fab advantage a series within the future of hospitality where we explore how food and beverage can truly move the needle for hospitality businesses my name is gabi and today we have a tv chef with a rock and roll running through his veins he started the star restaurants toured with artists and built an experience brand around the best moment of the day the aperitif my guest is jehoon de pau welcome jeroen thank you very much jurun has built a world around food that blends hospitality storytelling and emotion and later this conversation we will unpack how an opera driven concept becomes a business model and how intuition and creativity fit into operations but before we dive in jeroen you are a person that does so much things how do you usually explain to people what you're really focused on today yeah it's very difficult because when some people ask me what are you doing then i always say i do something with cooking something with something always the same subject that's food but i changed every 5 till 8 years i do another thing but it's always food based but yeah it's true i did already a lot of different things i did also a lot of things that i always wanted to do so i'm very happy with my job yeah yeah yeah food is a central part in your journey right and how much did your time at the hotel school really shape the way you think about food and hospitality today it's very different because when i was on the on school on school there is a lot of indoctrination that you really have to go to michelin stars restaurants and i did it also after school because it was normal we had an education in gastronomic food so i did also i worked in those restaurants and i did it also later on but after some time i said yeah it's really always the same thing it's hard work it's no free time it's always working working working and i really wanted to explore the world and that's something that was very difficult in this time to do it when you're working in michelin star restaurants so afterwards i realized when i want to see the world when i want to see when i want to meet other people when i want to create kind of networking then i have to change and i have to go out of the of the michelin star restaurants it was also a very different world the michelin restaurants than how it is now yeah because what is different if you compare it to each other yeah i think that a lot of chefs now also from michelin stars are really rock and roll stars they really explore the world they go they do they travel a lot to cook with other michelin stars restaurants it's more international but when i was young it was really based in belgium in the netherlands i worked also in the netherlands and i think it was not so not so big like like it is now yeah so you would say like the networking the kind of community the collaborations is something that really diverted and were you yeah and that's something that people are getting more if i hear you correct the networking the networking is for me personally networking is the most important thing in my in my job in my in my life because that's the reason how to explore other things other jobs other countries other it's it's very important for me to to met other people and to do a lot of networking yeah and i do maybe think also like hospitality people can learn about networking a lot of different cultures how people are doing different operations or different and learn from that to implement maybe in their own hospitality business yeah i always said that cooking it's really the key for explore new people for explore races people that you love it's it's really something who makes people brings people together yeah even even now i do i'm ready to make a documentary about countries in war and even countries in war you see that the only thing that it's very important for them to keep them together it's always food is the hospitality it's the mothers who are cooking for the boys they go to the army so even there in the baddest time of your life food is very important it's really yeah it's the key yeah yeah it's interesting because you're now telling about this documentary and like i said you're doing a lot of things regarding it's always like the food is the big theme within your life but i'm really curious can you maybe take us back to the moment where you realized you wanted to do things differently than the classic model you were saying about networking but when did that really click it's not really that i planned to do it something came very organically like i was working in a in a michelin star restaurant and i would like to do something else and it was really there was someone who called me it was a belgian famous singer and he he made kind of video clip in the neighborhood where i was living so they asked me can you can you cook for us can you make lunch for us but i always i was used to working michelin restaurant stars restaurants so i had my own my own style of cooking so i did the same for this day to cook for the artist there and i was really impressed because they never seen a catering on a concert that was so high level so they said yeah it's really great why don't you come with us to go on tour but i never did it before so i had not the material not the experience had nothing but the artist in belgium she said yeah i will invest in it with you and then you can come with us for one year yeah yeah no yeah i wanted to say like does did it feel maybe risky right because it's something totally different how did that feel yeah it was risky but i was very young i think in this those time i was even not 25 so i had no children i was not married so i was a little bit free to do what i wanted to do and i wanted to explore the world and you know it's really when they ask you to go with some famous people to cook for them it was really something new for me so i said yeah maybe it's nice it's a nice challenge maybe i have to do it and the fact that they also want to invest in it was also for me the risk was really low it was just to explore a new world and to do what i wanted to do that was cooking and traveling so i traveled around europe for i think two years and i did cooking shows for belgian artists like cluzo and kabouter plop till tom waits and shanita connor so it was really nice to to met those people and to create again a new network yeah did it also like maybe unlock a type of creative creativity because you're with creative people in the music industry but you are also creative did it unlock yeah maybe in new potential there is a lot of same things in music and food because music you make it with yeah it's it's like food you have ingredients and you make a dish with it and it's the same thing with music they make something like a dish but it's called a song with them so it's a little bit similar world we have the same interested the same way of thinking i thought and so yeah it was really nice it was also because i did france italian france italy spain so i also explored a lot of other ingredients a lot of other cultures a lot of other food culture so it was it opened my mind to be creative yeah did it maybe also shape your view on what hospitality should feel like for the guests yeah that's really difficult because when you are on tour with a group of people of artists of musicians of crew you're very locked in your own group we slept together on the tour bus we go we are we were really in our world it was a little bit different so that was not so easy but yeah you make your own universal effect yeah yeah no really interesting and like i said in the intro you're also working having this upper road driven concept and i'm curious how did that evolve how did that came up yeah that was later on when i came back on tour i did some sport events also like to de france and difficult and other things but in the end i was thinking when you ask people how are you doing they always said i'm very busy busy busy busy and i was thinking yeah i asked to the people when you're not busy what do you want to do so and everybody said i want to go on holiday and then i was thinking yeah holiday but why don't you do it because and the people they told me yeah or you've got no time to go on holiday or it costs some money to go on holiday so i was looking for what is the holiday feeling that i can put in food and in belgium i think in all over the world you've got a lot of trends from food trends and they are coming but they are going also we've got a future kitchen we've got a molecular kitchen we've got a vegan kitchen everything is coming but it goes away when the only thing that always stays in every food trend is aperitif apero it's the nicest thing it's also it it gives immediately kind of a holiday feeling when you open the bottle at the end of the week and you've got some nice small canape dishes to eat so it gives a lot of happiness and because i traveled a lot also i saw that everyone all over the world they are taking apero if you go to central park in new york you see people they are opening a bag of ships and they drink something or when you go to italy it's the same thing it's all over the world people like to do it because it's also it brings people together so i thought i gonna make concept a food concept around apero and i call it canape because canape it means in belgium or in france it means a couch to to chill out in fact but canape is also a small dish small yeah how do you say it zakuski to eat so for me the name was perfect and then i started with some yeah with a restaurant i had a shop i had two restaurants a shop yeah different areas to explore the apero concept yeah and when you look at like the traditional fb or restaurants where is the difference between operational like restaurant versus an upper row concept is there a difference in in that yeah it's a big difference so we are a lot of we put a lot of focus on cocktails and on apero drinks but on the other side we've got also it's a lot of work in the kitchen because we've got people they can choose between a lot between different things to eat so it's kind of apero din you all the evening you always it's like a kind of tapas but more more small dishes not like just olives and things like that there are really small dishes so it's also a different different concept also for the kitchen and for the for the for the waiters it's not so easy because it's it's a lot of work when you when you've got small restaurant or a big restaurant and you've got just apero and the main dish desserts the normal stuff it's not so much work than really make always new dishes but for us it was new but it's kind of the way of having dinner in the south of europe it's always a little bit like that you eat small things sharing things it's easygoing so i want to have really an easygoing concept yeah like i'm really curious because it's quite a new concept and like what is harder creating first experience when when the first time you you have a new concept or protecting it over time protecting it over time because you see that even now we are working now eight years and i see that it's it's a little bit gone already because there is also a lot of economic changing in in belgium there's a lot of financial crisis so people they don't spend so much money anymore and it's quite expensive concept so as an entrepreneur you really have to change always you really have to make new ideas you really have to switch your concept your business plan so i see that now it's a little bit the moment to change it already because because we did it eight years and people are a little bit getting used to it more restaurants try to work like this so it's also kind of trend but the apero is still is always very very popular in our country yeah yeah because you're talking about opero and i think that's of course something within the menu right and like i know you you like to engineer the menus and specialize in that but what is something you have learned about the menu structure that directly for example impacts the revenue per guest as you're saying like in belgium there is this crisis and yeah the margins are important in that way yeah yeah that's also it's a concept that that asked a lot of work and a lot of energy and a lot of concentration to to make it like it has to be but on the other hand you see that rentability from napero concept is getting lower and lower also because it's it's a lot of focus on alcoholic drinks and even that is getting less and less more people they don't drink alcohol anymore so we took it with the mocktails and we tried new drinks and things like that but apero and food and restaurant business is for a lot of people it's a it's a luxury thing that you that you can have so when there is financial crisis you see it immediately that the rentability of a restaurant is lower than before yeah i think that's super interesting because we're often restaurants think they're competing with a restaurant around the corner which is kind of true but in essence in this situation they're competing with the supermarkets right because their prices are lower and it is more accessible maybe so yeah how would you say that yeah but that's that's true so that was the reason for me to create also supermarket products under the name of canape and under the name of apero concept i'm always i'm working now for i think 15 years for delays it's one of the biggest retail companies in belgium it's a little bit high class supermarket and so i create the magazine for them and i write all the recipes so i have also some some some products that that we sell there in market so we've got the upper salsas we've got kind of bitter balls it's very it's very holland that bitterballer yeah but i'm the belgian version of it with classic belgian belgian dishes in it so yeah we had to do the two the two markets the retail and the hospitality in a restaurant and it's a little bit the same thing but yeah in the retail you don't got a hospital hospitality that you've got in a restaurant and the feeling and the kind of music and yeah things like that the designing yeah and it's interesting that you're saying local products because i know you're also a really big ambassador of local products would you say it would be interesting to focus also more on those local products for example for food and beverage concepts for example in hotels who focus more on that and really show their guests okay this is interesting yeah i think it's very important to work with local products for different reasons the first thing is that yeah you have to be proud on your roots where coming from and like we i'm living in flanders in belgium we've got a lot of lot of very perfect products in the area so i don't understand why you're gonna buy your products on the other side of the world if you've got it in your garden things like that you have to support your people around you and the local heroes i call them the local heroes got so many great products so i really try to work with them it's also kind of ambassador also of our own products because that's also what i think is very interesting when i go to another country i really want to explore their products and their tomatoes and their old things that they've got really in this country that make this country special so that's also the reason why i want to work with it in belgium and i also want to show it to the world because that's one of my next missions that is try to let the world taste from all the good things that you've got in belgium yeah i was in in japan on the world expo to cook with all products from my neighborhood from flemish part of belgium and i was there with 100 people in tokyo to let them taste our shikari or mustard or the really the beers from belgium the chocolate the waffles asparagus so the really the things from from our side and yeah it's very it's great that i can do it yeah but how did you sell like your chicory to an audience that barely knew it right this kind of maybe scary for them how did you yeah convince them to eat it convince them to eat it no but always when you do things like that people they are getting they are very curious they it's also the most of it it's an audience that really like to explore explore also new i work a lot of with entrepreneurs and they are they are traveling a lot i see also that that food is a kind of culture for a lot of people they are or i will talk for myself i travel to explore new food and i live my food is so important in my life that everything that i do it's focused on the food thing and i see that there's more and more people there they really like it and it's kind of we said we call it so it's really it's really important in our country food and beverage yeah i think you're really saying okay the food is really important but i'm also interested like if you look at the concept like a food and beverage concept how much is it about the food but how much is it for example about the flow or the energy of a concept or should there be a kind of balance it should have be a kind of balance but i see also and it's something new i think in the last 10 years before we've got the food was very important even in michelin stars restaurant it was the most important thing also in small in small groceries or restaurant but you see that people they want more than just the foods they want to feel the vibe they want to have the the best the music who is working with food the furniture the people hospitality how they talk how they are dressed how they are they how they make you they really have to give you a special feeling and it's the old thing the experience that it's important and food is one of them but the other things are also very very important i think yeah yeah and it's also interesting like how do you design for example the food and beverage experience to be spontaneous and nice and human but also have it like operational right because it's operational is maybe more structure and strict whereas we also want that human how do you balance data in essence yeah it's not so it's very difficult because there is also people and they don't like it they want to have it very strict and but i am i'm a little bit i don't think nonchalant but it's important to to be yourself the people they have to be or their self when they come to the restaurant have to got a nice feeling i feel a lot of restaurants where you when you walk in that there is a little bit stressed how are you dressed and what can you do and sometimes i see people that don't go often to restaurants they are feeling a little bit strange to be there so i think we have to we have to chill a little bit that it's easier that someone can feel themselves great and that they can yeah you have to make an experience for them and it's diff it's difficult because some people they've got a lot of time to explore to be their self to chill to have the old evening and some people that want to have it strict and easy and fast and so yeah the hospitality is very important to the people they are working for you that they feel the guests a little bit what they are looking for yeah and should you say maybe like you're really talking about chill kind of pay like relaxed should fmb concept maybe be more designed around social behavior than around yeah maybe the food or it is a social behavior it's it's the start of it if you if you met a new boyfriend or girlfriend the first thing that you will say is we're gonna have eat something or we're gonna drink something so the social thing is so important and i think it's even more important now and in the future than before because before we had not we had not social media we've got not other things so when we want to met people when i was young and i want to met my friends and i really have to make an appointment we have to drink something we have to be together we have to see each other feel each other but now i've got young kids and even when i say why don't you go out with your friends and they say yeah but i talked to a chat already on instagram or snapchat or something like that so we lose a little bit the social thing and that's very important that we try to keep it yeah if you see in belgium we had a lot of pubs before you know that in belgium they really like to drink a lot of beer drink a lot of pubs in every small yeah in every small town you had five six cafes so it all disappeared because people they don't they don't go out anymore it's so we have to try to to put it back that it's really that food hospitality gastronomic that it's really something social and that we have to try to rebuild it again yeah it's interesting that you're saying like pubs are maybe are disappearing and etc do you believe like the classic restaurants like with table service is still the best default model for restaurants today like the classic classic ones i don't know i think there are a lot of classic restaurants they are disappearing in belgium because a lot of big companies they take it over like the big ones like food concepts and businessmen they have 10 15 20 kind of the same restaurants like concept concept restaurants so financially it's getting very difficult to start from yourself to make a restaurant because the business model of a classic restaurant it's not good in fact because you have to invest in people in food in furniture in the vibe so it costs a lot of money and then you're waiting till the people are coming and when they are coming you're not sure how much money they will spend so the business model is not so good for a classic restaurant so i think it's important to always to always find new things new vibes to be creative to make people happy to explore new things yeah and i also really want to touch up quickly about like the zero waste ambition that you have right because that's a really important thing in your story and yeah what what can zero waste help within the current situations restaurants are in can they like what did you what can you adjust without losing the experience and focusing on the zero waste ambition but the zero waste i rather i had made read a book about zero waste cooking it's very technical in the kitchen what can you do you know with the climate changing or even cooks they can make different about it they can try to have to cook with everything that they got so that's really the story that i want to tell in my book is to make chef behave that you can cook with everything but a lot of things that you throw away normally that you can make something with it and it's also a financial model the things that you throw away normally you can use it so we make cakes with whole oranges oranges the thing was that i made recipes and all the ingredients that you've got on your plate we use them all of everything even the peel even and it's easy to do it's a new way of thinking new way of cooking but i think if we can do something to stop the climate changing then we have to do it and also in the kitchen or in the gastronomic world you can do it sometimes about it yeah yeah i the thing that i really love about you yaroon is that you are a sponge of knowledge you have so much knowledge about different things and is really inspiring if you look back on your journey like what's one early mistake that maybe quietly became an important lesson for you during your journey of finding all these new things yeah it's for me it's very i really needed to to to do new things and to explore that's what i said i the networking with other people is so interesting and i'm getting older now i'm 46 and i even have a little bit scared that i cannot do anything what i wanted to do what i still wanted to do but i did a lot of different things and after a while i think okay i've seen it i've done it been there done that i gonna do something else because i want to do i've got also things that didn't work that i tried but it didn't work but yeah i think that the most important lesson is to when you met new people you can open your mind and you can open you have to listen to other people and you learn more about listening than about talking so it's for me it's important to do different things for myself to be creative but the most important thing is to be together with the family have some nice dinner to explore new tastes and things like that so the basic of all my career is be yourself and do what you want to do and do it for yourself yeah we always talk our final question is always about the future of hospitality and i'm really curious because you're saying belgium is currently in yeah difficult situation what do you think will maybe amaze people about the belgium hospitality within five years is that the product is that the process is that the service maybe i think that the biggest thing in belgium is the product because the people are getting the workload is very heavy in hospitality and we don't find so much people anymore that wants to work in it because the cost of people is very high in belgium so it's very difficult to make rentability business around working with people they are working with their hands so we really have to work on our products in belgium the things that we've got the the tastes that we've got and i think that we can that we can rule the world with all the the good things that we've got in belgium and it is the most important thing i think yeah nice now your own thank you so much honestly i had a great time and i love the stories and the perspectives the perspective you shared today and again thank you so much for your time no problem with love for the audience listeners this was the f and b advantage part of the future of hospitality podcast if you enjoyed this conversation and want more insights on how food and beverages can drive real hospitality impact make sure to subscribe and join our newsletter at the future of hospitality.org i wish you a really nice time and i will see you the next time