NEW LIFE:After years in the oil business French man Christophe Vollaire came to Ireland and became a chef, writes MICHELLE McDONAGH.
HAVING HEARD a lot about the Celtic Tiger, French man Christophe Vollaire moved to Dublin last year at the age of 40 with the ambition of working in the construction industry. Unfortunately, his timing couldn’t have been worse with the economic downturn and the collapse of the property market, but he decided to stay on in Ireland anyway and do something totally different.
Over the space of 20 years working in the oil business in France, Vollaire had travelled the world but Ireland had held a fascination for him since he first read about the country many years ago. Although he had always loved cooking, and baking in particular, little did he think that one day he would end up living in Dublin and working as a chef baking scones and brown bread.
“I grew up in a little village just south of Nîmes, at the Camargue gate. It’s a very typically French village with two bakeries, two butchers, a post office, a medieval castle. Of course, the market on Friday morning is full of life and as it is situated in the heart of the vineyard ‘des Costières’, the wine cellar for the village is a kind of centre point.
“I recall the end of April particularly as we have a grand colourful parade through the village with the blessing of the vine, celebrated by everyone from the locality. This is for good luck and a good harvest. It’s also an opportunity to sample some of the new wine.”
Vollaire went to local schools until he was about 17 when he was admitted to the Technical Institute of Nîmes where he studied welding and mechanical engineering. After graduation, he was obliged to join the French army for one year before he started his career in the oil business.
“The best thing about working in the oil business was the opportunity to travel. When I started in it, I was 21 and before long I was assigned to work in Lyon, Paris, Marseille and Le Havre in Normandy, and that was followed by overseas contracts.
“This was an exciting time of my life and over the space of 15 years I lived in the Ivory Coast [west Africa], Antwerp, Martinique [West Indies], London and Moffat in Scotland.”
Vollaire rose through various positions from welding supervisor, quality controller, engineer’s assistant, procurement manager’s assistant to cost estimator (estimating and tendering for shutdown unit maintenance contracts) when he was based in Aix en Provence for six years.
“I enjoyed the overseas assignments very much as I got the chance to meet lots of people from very varied backgrounds. In the English speaking regions, I took the opportunity to improve my English and I took up golf in Scotland – so that put me in touch with new friends, some of them from Ireland.”
In his late 30s, Vollaire began to feel like he needed a change of profession.
Since college, he had been working hard in the same business and the work had become less interesting and quite repetitive over the previous five years.
He enjoyed Irish music and loved hill walking and when the opportunity arose for him to spend some time in Ireland in 2008, he decided to take it.
“I had heard a lot about the Celtic Tiger and I thought I could find a suitable job given the variety of employment opportunities I had heard about. And so I moved to Dublin. In the beginning, I was thinking of working in the construction industry but with the economic downturn, this became an unrealistic ambition. I felt it was maybe time for a more radical change.”
Although he had always loved cooking, Vollaire had no formal training and he decided he would have to address this if he was going to find a job. A food critic he met recommended a few short but intense courses and he opted for the one-month certificate course at the Dublin Cookery School.
“I had a wonderful time there, it was an extremely creative experience and with Derry Clarke and Neven Maguire as guest chefs, among others, I became more and more interested in pursuing a career in the kitchen.”
After the Dublin Cookery School, Vollaire went on A Fáilte Ireland 16-week culinary skills course. This gave him a very good foundation in the day-to-day business of working in a professional kitchen as well as a Fetac level 4 certificate.
With the training he needed to get started, Vollaire applied for a number of different jobs in Dublin and ended up in the Kilkenny cafe and restaurant on Nassau Street where he started earlier this year as a chef making scones and brown bread.
“It’s my first job in my new profession and I’m enjoying it a lot. I’m meeting new people, learning lots of things in the kitchen and working hard in a very good and professional team.
“As I really like making cakes and biscuits, I’m thinking of doing some evening courses to become a pastry chef.”
Vollaire says his life in Dublin is completely different from his previous life in France. He may be less well off materially but, as he explains philosophically, there are many compensations. He has made new friends, has a new lifestyle and a new profession which he is thoroughly enjoying.
“I took a drop in salary but a rise in my day-to-day satisfaction at work. That means a lot to me as I feel more creative. Ireland is expensive, but I live well if economically . . . I’m not an extravagant person,” he says.
Vollaire, who is single, still likes to travel, both within Ireland and abroad when he can. He returns to France to see his parents every six months or so and also visits other parts of the country which he now sees through the eyes of a tourist.
He has recently travelled to Italy, Greece and Croatia and hopes some day to visit Australia, New Zealand and western Canada.
At home in Dublin, he enjoys spending long hours growing vegetables or baking sweet treats. He likes going to markets, the Milk market of Limerick being his favourite, and he would like to return to the golf he took up while in Scotland.