I like to meet up with people who have taken risks in their lives and have succeeded because they all have this common determination and positivism. And Pascal Aussignac is one of them. He is the man behind “Club Gascon”. He, along with his business partner, decided to leave France to come to London with no prior experience in this country whatsoever to set up a restaurant. Apart from being very brave, Pascal Aussignac has been doing very well since his restaurant on West Smithfield won a Michelin Star. He has also expanded with a wine Bar, “Cellar Gascon”, a French Bistrot and delicatessen “Comptoir Gascon” and finally an other restaurant “Le Cercle” near Sloane Square. Picture below - Pascal Aussignac in Club Gascon's kitchen. Olivier Bourseau: Good morning Pascal, thank you very much for having us at Club Gascon for this interview. You were born in Toulouse South of France. What made you leave Toulouse for London? Pascal Aussignac: I was born in Toulouse but actually didn’t live in Toulouse for long. My family is coming from Toulouse and the area of Toulouse. My surname (Aussignac) is very dedicated to the south-west of France with all this “gnac” endings, like Armagnac and all the names of the villages between Bordeaux and Toulouse! I then lived in La Rochelle for 15 years, moved to Bordeaux to learn and train at the cooking school in Talence, and after my exams I moved to Versailles and Paris and ended up living for 12 years in Paris! So I have been going up North for a long time, I have been in London for 10 years and I hope I will not end up in Copenhagen! Olivier Bourseau: So what made you leave France for the UK? Pascal Aussignac: It was because I could not manage to have my restaurant in Paris which I had been trying for 5 years. When I was between 25 and 29 years old, I wanted to get my restaurant in the “Triangle d’Or” in Paris which is an area which includes the 8th Arrondissement of Paris. I didn’t have enough money and I didn’t have enough connections to make it good, and find the right angle for me. I was quite ambitious also and maybe greedy at the time so I wanted to have the best location and not something in between. I then found a business partner and we took the risk together and we moved to London without having ever worked in London at all before. So it was the biggest challenge of our lives. My business partner Vincent Labeyrie had just divorced at that time and I was about to get into a new decade of age in my life so we decided to join our forces and money and take the leap to the London scene without knowing anything about London at all. That was quite brave at the time. We arrived in London in 1997. Just before, I had been managing a restaurant in St Tropez which I had set up and was managing. And I was not happy with employing seasonal staff which, as you may know is not the best to deal with restaurants and other things on the Riviera Coast in the south of France. Since I am a passionate guy, I could not cope with this kind of people so I decided to change completely and leave France. The other reason was the problem with banks in France. When you are young and even though you have the perfect profile to set up your restaurant, and I had very good training experience so had on paper a great profile, no bank was willing to take the risk with me. They ask you for any guarantee they can think of and you can’t! So maybe things will change with the new government. I don’t know but I hope. But I found the right way of life in the UK, a good match for my ambition, and the way we do business here, in very good surroundings. I am very glad to be here! Picture below - face of the restaurant Olivier Bourseau: What do you like about London compared to France regarding the food industry? Pascal Aussignac: I would say that the main difference is the variety. You have specialised restaurants at top level from all around the world in London and I think it is linked to the people of London which are very international as you know since you live in London. You can feel the difference with Paris. I have been in London for about 10 years and can really compare the 2 cities and in terms of rating, I think Paris still leads because of the quality and the concentration of the best restaurants. And even without talking about the Michelin stars, the synergy of skills from the front of the house, kitchen, technical skills, and ambition of individuals working in the industry and willing to do something exceptional working in Paris: all of that is much higher than in London. London is much more about diversity and specialised restaurants. Of course you have exceptions with classic restaurants like Le Gavroche, Manoir … All those people have established very high restaurant standards in the UK and that has been the case for decades. But in terms of trend and diversity it is amazing as you can get the best Indian, Japanese or South American restaurants in London and better that in France. Olivier Bourseau: In terms of your background, have you always thought you would become a chef and at when did the interest in food start? Pascal Aussignac: When I was 10 years old, I had a passion, which is quite a long time ago already, but I wanted to become a stonecutter. It can sound like a cliché but you have to have some family involved in this business since it is a much specialised business, a niche. You don’t have any school in France, so you have to go to Holland or Switzerland to train and also it is better if you have the right connections. So as it was too difficult to get to this business, I decided to become a chef. I was 10 years old and told my parents that I would like to become a chef. And they were clever enough to listen to me. So instead of going to normal holidays I went to La Rochelle to spend some time in a restaurant managed by my family’s friends. So in the summertime I went to see if I would like it and could cope with it. I did very very basic things as I was not allowed to cook really, I wasn’t paid for that, which was fair since I was there just to see things and train helping the chefs but I really enjoyed this work life. So I then started and got my first salary when I was 17. It is a long time already! Picture below - Club Gascon's big front window! Olivier Bourseau: So did your passion for food start by then? Pascal Aussignac: When you start working in the restaurant, you begin to feel the different flavours and to analyse. You can not really analyse when you are too young, you just taste things. The analysing part of the job starts when you get more experience, and you develop you palate over time and it is the same thing with wine actually. Olivier Bourseau: Reading from your website, you have worked with Gerard Vie, Alain Dutournier and Guy Savoy. Who has been the strongest influence on your style and why? Pascal Aussignac: I think, and that is an advice for many chefs if I can say that, that it is great to work when you are young at top level restaurants because it pushes you! It also gives you some keys to then set up your own restaurant if you are ambitious enough and to cope with the staff you will employ. Because that is the most difficult thing on a daily basis! It is not the customer, it is not about creativity, it is not about the suppliers, it is just the staff! Staff is a real pain! But at the same time they are the people you live with and spend more time with than in your private life. So you have to be careful who you employ and you have to cope with these people. And the more you grow, the more staff you have and the more difficult it gets. But going back to the influences, each restaurant has given me some keys which you don’t really see when you are there training. You understand it later. When you then go somewhere else, and because you had had this kind of training and the use of flavours, you keep this in your mind. So when you develop you own identity, you can not copy what the master chef was doing, you have to work around that and develop your own style using what you have learned before. And of course that is a problem with your staff because everyone wants to have more experience so the turnover rate is quite high in this business. Every employee wants to grow and see different things which is fair but it is difficult for the boss when you want to create a team because it is always a long process where you have to recruit and train new people. So it is difficult to keep a consistency in the team and that is an issue in this industry. Olivier Bourseau: Club Gascon is famous for the small dishes tapas style you serve. Why have you decided on this format and is it something you will always keep as the main feature in your menu? Pascal Aussignac: What happens is Vincent and I were coming from the south-west of France. And we decided to set up a restaurant no just to do any other restaurant. What’s the point of a new place without an identity? So we analysed the French market for restaurants. People had been eating for the last 60 years in France and other countries with a starter, a main and a pudding. When we thought about opening a place, it was just before the millennium. I remember my mum telling me actually “when I go to a restaurant, I prefer sometimes to have 2 starters rather than a starter and a main because I do not have enough appetite for the main” and I thought that was a very interesting thing. Most of the women do not have a huge appetite. They want to go out but they do not want to eat a lot for plenty of reasons which you know. So they want flavours and taste but they do not want to feel full up. So we looked at the south-west of France and the food is all about very fatty and heavy food with foie gras, cassoulet, confit.. and all this kind of food but with beautiful flavours. So we thought about reducing the fat and the quantity and therefore why not reducing the size of the plates as well? So instead of having a classic meal with starter, main and pudding we thought about having a series of plates instead. So we arranged the series of plates and put together a full meal which includes about 4 plates. That is why and how Club Gascon has been designed. And I think the format has been pleasing a lot of people. We have created a trend and we have been the first to make it under a French restaurant label ever. And it is not a creation, it is adapting what we have seen elsewhere. But the Spanish Middle Eastern, and Asian people have been eating like that for a long time! Olivier Bourseau: Club Gascon produces traditional French food, but served in a very modern way in my opinion. You use quite a lot of the traditional french ingredients such as Foie gras, truffle, the traditional cheeses. Are you thinking about opening up to more international influences or will you always keep your style around the French traditional ingredients? Pascal Aussignac: It used to be very traditional, and now it has become much more creative. If you look at Comptoir Gascon, our French fine food shop around the corner, it includes some very traditional food like confit, cassoulet, French fries, foie gras. But Club Gascon the restaurant is much more creative. So do not expect to get a confit of duck at Club gascon anymore. It is a creative style of restaurant only! Olivier Bourseau: How do you get inspiration to create your new dishes? Pascal Aussignac: I keep my influences from the beautiful recipes from the South-west of France to perpetuate the tradition so I use primarily the local ingredients of the South-West and give a twist to them, with something unusual which at the end of the day will provide a modern style to the dish. But there is always a link to my origins even though the line can be very thin. Picture below - Inside Club Gascon Olivier Bourseau: So you will never change your style to something different than south-west? Pascal Aussignac: At Club Gascon no, but at the Cercle, our other restaurant, it is French cuisine, and the previous restaurant in St Tropez was pure Provencal food. So I will always adapt the style to the image or style of the restaurant we will be willing to provide whichever the origin. It is not because my origins are south-west of France that I know and will only be doing south-west cuisine. And especially since I lived there for 3 months only! Olivier Bourseau: Wine is important in your restaurant. You match your menu with a list of wine by the glass. As a chef how important is wine to you? Pascal Aussignac: Wine is very important but it is secondary to food. The partnership with Vincent Labeyrie has been great because he has been very involved with wine. He has been making all the wine lists for the company and he has got a very good memory on wine which I don’t. I have a good memory on food but not on wine. When you train as a chef it is difficult to have time and take time to learn about wine as well even if you are passionate about everything. You have to train and learn about wine to know about it well. And it is difficult to combine both. It is a bit late now, it was not part of my training when I was in France. I have learned more about wine since I have been in London thanks to the sommelier and Vincent. I have a lack of wine knowledge but am working on it! With regards to matching wine with food, it is logical again at Club Gascon with our wine list specialised in the South-west of France, and we have probably the most complete wine list dedicated to the south-west region of France in London as a restaurant. Olivier Bourseau: Do you work in partnership with your sommelier or do you leave him doing what he does the best without interfering? Pascal Aussignac: We create a new menu every month which is famous and a big selling item at the restaurant. We are actually changing it tomorrow so it is a lot of work currently. So when we put together the new dishes the sommelier comes to the kitchen and tastes the food and suggests some wines. This matching job is more on the sommelier’s side. And at the end I have the choice and most of the time I agree on their choices. Olivier Bourseau: Again your wine list is French and specialised in the south-west. Is it to keep it in line with the style of your restaurant or is it because you think the French wines are the best? And what do you think about the New World wine? Pascal Aussignac: I think New World wines are great but with our image of south west and Club Gascon, our name tells the customer that. So everyone is dedicated to this South-west image and we need to stick with it also on the wine side of things. Olivier Bourseau: What is your favourite wine ? Pascal Aussignac: Condrieu! Oivier Bourseau: Thank you very much Pascal!