How do you recruit specialized French gastronomy talent in a foreign market?

In search of blue-white-red know-how A signature dish from the restaurant.

How do you recruit professionals specialized in French cuisine in a foreign market?

It's not easy at all.The question about the chef is already settled, he is one of the partners.

He's my only partner.It turns out that the chef, at the beginning of his career,worked with a Parisian pastry chef who was also a cook,he's Franco-Spanish, but much more French than Spanish.

He enjoyed creating fine French cuisine in Spain and making it known.

That was the second way we managed to find someone capable of preparing French cuisine.

Finally, that's where it ends.We couldn't find any other specialist in French cuisine.

However, we did find a very good pastry chef.I think, all over the world, the model to follow in pastry-making,is the French one.

She knew that quite well.She doesn't design the desserts,but she's the one who prepares them for each service, and she's outstanding.

That allowed us to solve the dessert side, since the pastry chef became the sous-chef.

Just doing pastry wasn't enough for him.So, we were missing one more person in the restaurant to take care of the starters.

We found a very good young Spanish man of Ecuadorian origins.

He didn't know French cuisine very well,but he had the basics to learn.

He has learned from great French chefs who, between the two of them,have dozens of Michelin stars.

Yannick Alléno has 17 stars, and one of our best chefs has ten.

He worked with them for ten years.He was their sous-chef, so he learned many things and passes them on to his team.

In our kitchen team we have: the chef, the person in charge of the starters who is a young cook, the sous-chef who takes care of the hot dishes,and the pastry chef who is responsible for the desserts.

To help them, we are looking for... We are going to have interns.

Normally, there are six of us in the kitchen in total.

We are going to have a trainee from the Cordon Bleu cooking school,and it's great because they have good training.

The apprentices don't handle the plating.That's done by the cooks.

However, they help a lot with the preparation process,which is truly essential.

They also learn by observing.That's the real learning.

They learn by watching the cooks and through a few pieces of advice.

It's useful for them.They're useful to us in the preparations, and we're very satisfied with them.

As for hiring, so far we've recruited,as I mentioned before, people through personal contacts.

For example, I knew the maitre d' because she used to work at another French restaurant that closed,and I saw that she did a good job.

When I opened... When we opened the restaurant,even before that, I called the owner of that French restaurant that had closed but was still active supplying bars and restaurants in Madrid.

I said to her: "Please, give me her contact in Madrid.

I'd like to work with her." That's how we got in touch with her, and she was so interested in working in kitchen again that she joined the rest of the staff.

I mentioned that the sous-chef was an acquaintance to Romain, my partner.

For the rest, we worked with specialized platforms for hiring kitchen and restaurant staff in general:kitchen, front-of-house, etc.

Candidates need to be interviewed.Those who are going to work with them are the ones who conduct the interviews to see if they fit.

Afterwards, of course, they work in the restaurant,they're on a trial period, and that way I can see if they fit in.

But mainly, it's the people on the front line who know whether they're learning, effective, they have initiative, etc.

So I delegate all that part.