A Conversation with Olivier Flosse

Neha Lamba Grover: Good morning everyone. welcome back to No Forks Given. Today I have with me Olivier Floss, who is a chef and sommelier. He's a Frenchman who's now settled in New York. Welcome to No Forks Given, Olivier.

Olivier Flosse: Thank you, Néa. Thank you to be part of your broadcast. Thank you very much.

Neha Lamba Grover: No Fox Given focuses on social identities, but we discuss food as a metaphor for it. And I can't think of a s a social identity that is more closely tied to food than the French, or at least one of those that's most closely tied to the French. what is the first food memory or wine memory that you have, Olivier, that made you realize who you were, you know, in terms of your identity.

Olivier Flosse: Yes, yes. Well, I will say my first memory was more on food than wine

Neha Lamba Grover: Okay.

Olivier Flosse: because it was early stage. There is definitely one that comes up to my mind at all the time is when I was maybe 10, 12 years old and I was going to my grandmother and grandfather's house. And my grandfather back then was a fisherman, traditional

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm-hmm.

Olivier Flosse: fisherman, living every morning extremely early and come back middle of afternoon with a fresh fish. And the way that he was cooking the fish, all the building could smell it and not on a naughty way, on a very positive way. And I was remembering Climbing the stairs, they were living on the fourth floor, and each individual floor for me was like, okay, I'm getting close to what I'm dreaming to it all week long. That was a memory that will never change in my mind. And it was coming more from the smell than the test and the view. So the smell is extremely, extremely important for me as a vision. as well, the vision is important too, but sometimes we have a tendency to focus a little bit too much on the vision and a little bit less on the smell.

Neha Lamba Grover: So so would you say that's the moment that made you want to be a chef then?

Olivier Flosse: I was extremely young, so it was not really the first time where I decided to love cooking. I will say that came up a little bit later on when I started to move from one restaurant to another one as a sommelier and have the chance to meet the chef to pair the food and the wine. So as this time at age maybe 20, 25, 30, during this time, I really love engaging with a top chef and always keep in my mind, maybe one day I will be able to do something like that. And to be honest with you, Neha, each individual weekend, I love have people in my home or cooking for other people. It's just a therapy and a pleasure for me.

Neha Lamba Grover: so you're more of a somelier than a chef, right?

Olivier Flosse: I've been for over 36 years in a world of wine, very deep into it. But again, wine doesn't do anything if you don't have any food. So that is why the food and wine for me is only one unit together.

Neha Lamba Grover: French treat their cuisine as a cultural heritage. a patrimione,

Olivier Flosse: Yes, yes, yes. Yes, I will say the French has a tendency to be more on the technical aspect of the food. They are extremely very, very good on it. Now, I've been lucky enough to travel a lot regarding to food and wine and I've seen in many different countries exceptional exceptional food. Now the technical part agrees it is definitely a master possible is in French. Yes.

Neha Lamba Grover: So what does that mean when they say they treat it like a it's almost like a landmark and are they are possessive about the technique that you talked about? What does that mean? What does that possessiveness look like? What is the French technique that's being preserved?

Olivier Flosse: It is all about the way of using certain technique that for them, and I do believe is true, will make the cuisson, the perfection, the way of cutting potatoes, cucumber, onion, the way that they're doing it. going to look like absolutely beautiful in a plate. I believe it's everything around the preparation. That is masterpiece in French. The preparation is extremely important. It's a base of building out a beautiful house. And if you don't have a base, the house may be in trouble. And for them, that is what the technical part is important.

Neha Lamba Grover: But does that do you think too much obsession with preservation? Do you think it preserves the craft or does it calcify French cuisine? Or does it prevent it from new influences or you don't think that? Yeah. Yeah.

Olivier Flosse: So the technical part is one thing. Now the fusion and all stuff like that, it is very important. And I do believe the new generation coming up with a younger generation who has been traveling everywhere and an impact of Italian, Indian cuisine, Spanish, whatever is in the world, start really to be... coming up in France. But is it true that they love to be super traditional on certain dish and they will not remove from that? Now, now, the most important thing is not the chef for me. The most important thing is a customer. So whatever the customer wants to have, that is important. So eating the different dishes from France is perfect. But for me, I consider myself still as very young. I would like to test something else too, maybe with the same technique, yes, but I want to see some influence from different country. That again is really personal, but people wants to and part as well. I'm cooking, doing the wine, but I'm a customer too. And that is what most important part is a customer part. not the chef part. For me.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. So so do you cook just French food with a twist or what kind of cuisines do you cook?

Olivier Flosse: I love to cook whatever my customer asks for. it could be, originally my parents are from North Africa. So the oriental type of food, the spice, I really love it. As I was mentioning before, my grandfather was a fisherman. I love cooking fish. I love cooking meat. I don't have the narrow mind to say because of my French accent, I'm going to cook French. No, diversity is extremely important in cuisine or on anything else. And I'm a fusion type of guy. I can go Spanish full blast. I can do Italian, French, whatever come to my mind, I will definitely. No, not only French. I can go everywhere.

Neha Lamba Grover: But living in New York, do you think people see you in a stereotypical way? Is there a certain expectation that becomes, I don't know, frustrating or whether you enjoy it, but is there an expectation that your food should be of a certain kind?

Olivier Flosse: It's like as soon as I'm talking, you cannot miss it. I'm not from Brooklyn or Bronx.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm-hmm.

Olivier Flosse: French accent, super heavy French accent. So yes, right away the French label come up and it is right away for them like, my God, it's going to be an incredible good experience with the food. So that I cannot deny is there. But we are in New York. Cosmopolitan is going from everywhere. And again and again, I just came back from an incredible wine dinner on Sunday, and it was not only French cuisine. It was a mix of Italian, French, was mixed of these two beautiful country. Nine people, were extremely, extremely happy. I received five different emails from each guest. That's it. It was a mix of two different countries. And it could be four, five, six. Indian food, I love Indian food. I want to learn more about it. And I believe we need to leave our spirit completely open. and nothing better than discover a different country with their technical part as well. Same thing in wine.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. What about I mean, the obsession on authenticity? I sometimes feel like that's a word that's most abused, not just in food writing, but when we talk about social identities, everybody's trying to get this pure authentic state of things. And nothing is more effective than food. When you follow the history of techniques or you follow the history of different ingredients, you start questioning what is. Authentic in the first place. For instance, the labor in most of the kitchens in France, in New York, and some of the big restaurants around the world relying on immigrant labor. I was reading about even the cheese industry in Italy, which is as close to their Italian identity as any ingredient can be. Is completely run by people from the Punjab region of India. And so when we talk about things that are authentic, you wonder so what do you think about the influence of the large amount of immigrant cooks you have, even in France, where you when you go in through for a traditional French meal, very often it could be cooked by people from a very different ethnicity.

Olivier Flosse: So it is a very, very interesting question because for a long time, traveling and visiting restaurant or winery, the word authentic for me doesn't have the same meaning that it used to be. And we talk about food now, we can talk about the wine as well. Authenticity

Neha Lamba Grover: Yes, yes.

Olivier Flosse: in the wine is a big question. I'm a very, very big fan of mixing because more we going to mix, more we going to learn. If we stay with a narrow mind of saying, okay, that is only one area done by only one type of people, we going nowhere, absolutely nowhere. I learned, and it's funny enough, some of the techniques in French cuisine, I learned that with the people from Morocco. I learned from people from Italy. I learned from people from Spain, because they were sometimes better than French chefs. And I learned some dishes that I was trying to excel on, on Italian cuisine. with people from France or Spain or England. So the diversity of people who's cooking for me is organically normal because everybody wants to learn and everybody's equal. So why not? Now the authenticity of the produce, five or six years ago, I had the chance to go to Italy in Piedmont. during the white truffle festival and in Alba. So we stay one week testing all the wine and enjoying the Italian food. Some people told me, many people told me that some of the white truffle from Alba was not originally from Alba. They were from a different country nearby. So when you hear that, say, okay, authenticity is a white truffle from Alba. Every word knows it's Alba, Alba. No, it's not from Alba. It could be from different country around Alba. So authenticity, I believe, is a word that we have to be a little bit more careful.

Neha Lamba Grover: With the as a follow-up to that, the French idea of terroir, you know, that a wine expresses a specific soil of a region, that is really a philosophy of identity through geography. do you think, I mean, is that just a wine industry mythology, or do you believe in it?

Olivier Flosse: I do believe definitely on the word terroir. Terroir is a land. Land cannot be removed.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Olivier Flosse: We all know that. So I do have more understanding on the word terroir than authenticity. Terroir is one specific typicity of soil that is located somewhere. difficult to remove it and link most of the time with the indigenous grapes that are local grapes. So I'm a bigger believer on terroir and authenticity will be more used better way in wine than it is in the food because related of the land and... You do have France, Italy, Spain, different one region and because of the soil is a straight nutrition to the vine that cannot change. if they look adding a local grape, that is where the word authenticity and tradition will be more appropriate. I have more sympathy again with wine, authentic terroir. that I will have with the food. Food in this world is a very big question mark. More than a wine for me.

Neha Lamba Grover: And what about the impact of global warming on wines? And therefore the terroir, right? Yeah.

Olivier Flosse: Global warming is an issue. I will say, Neha, global warming is not only an issue with the wine, it's global warming with absolutely every single thing around us. Wine is a pleasure that we do have from time to time. Now, when you do have like in Europe for six to seven weeks, over 115 degrees Fahrenheit is destroying human being. So we put a little bit wine on the side. It's a very, very, important subject. Going back to the wine, they did harvest three weeks before the normal date. So you're going to have less and less quantity. hopefully a very good quality, because that is very important. But the global warming are destroying on both sides, hot or cold. You do have some challenging vintages because in end of April, you have frost. I never heard that before. Extremely cold end of April, no way. and you do have heavy rain suddenly coming up from nowhere, is going to be on the top of people drink much less. That is another subject that we maybe could talk about it. So you do have that wine is affected by the global warming and the effect of the global warming, the cost of that going up in Europe. So of course, us here, we're going to pay more and more and more. So it's getting more and more expensive, okay, and less and less people drink. So we get to a point that French government now in certain region, let's go to take the example of Bordeaux, the most well-known wine region in the world, they ask to remove wine because there is too much an excess of wine compared of people that enjoying wine.

Neha Lamba Grover: wow. You had also mentioned that when people hear your accent, they expect a premium quality in terms of food. There is a perceived hierarchy in the world of cuisines, right? I've discussed this in a different episode. We had Dr. Ray, who's the head of the food studies PhD program at NYU, and he's written about this. How do you think something like that appears? You know, French food is almost at the tip of that pyramid of. Hierarchy where French food is treated like art, the French chef is an artist, but other cuisines somehow are treated more as exotic. And you know, you can expect them on the street, but you don't expect, you don't associate French food with a street experience, for instance. What are your thoughts on that? And I mean, how is it, how do you think these hierarchies change? How do they come about?

Olivier Flosse: Okay, I'm going to take your example, Nea, as a beautiful

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, yeah.

Olivier Flosse: lady that you are. let's go to take the example. When you're going out, you are dressed on a different way than your Saturday and Sunday. Okay, so the French cuisine, I will say, and I'm comparing that with the restaurant business. When you go to Paris, you want to... to eat, of course, French because it's Paris. So you're going to this top restaurant, pretty expensive, and you eat small portion, top quality, with again and again a lot of technique to make that. Can you eat that every single day? No. Why? Because a certain time it will be same and the same. I will call that it would be maybe boring. So comparing to the strict food that could be easy to eat with the end and you are in a different area, different location. Yes, I do believe that this small, tiny country where they have the chicken, I love that. And I believe we need to experience that as well. And you do have many different show. in cuisine, where I show you some chef going to completely unknown country and he was testing some food that for him and for this type of chef, high-end quality chef, saying that the food was absolutely phenomenal. So we should be more open-minded, as I was saying before, on this type of food too, because Learning different techniques can bring to your own cuisine even a better level.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. do you but do you think there's some politics involved in these hierarchies? Because when you talk, say about Michelin ratings or any top hundred list of foods, that mix is now starting to change. But the f even that change is determined by some sort of socioeconomic changes in the in the people who are rating this. Who are deciding what a good experience looks like, for instance. And I'm just saying that because I'll give you an example of there's a temple in Queens in New York. It's been making the same food for years. And it's not that the food has changed, but you suddenly see it more in the top hundred of New York Times, etc., only because you know the minds are opening and expanding. And I just wonder sometimes it's not that the food has changed. It really is that the open-mindedness of the people who are deciding what is premium and what isn't. And you know, that's where the question had come from. You know, how are these hierarchies decided? Because people who are used to a lot of spice, even the most even a three-star Michelin restaurant food will not appeal to them. If it doesn't have that adequate kind of fire. And then similarly, people who want to feel more delicate, subtle flavours and are not used to spice feel that it doesn't even all allow them to taste stuff just because you know they are not expi you know, exposed to it. And it was just a thought there that I was I was leaving.

Olivier Flosse: Is it political or not political? Difficult to answer that. The only one vision that I have on this point is they need to attract more and more people. And the only one way to attract more people is to open more. So, yes, definitely there is influence. Media, video, Instagram and all this type of stuff. Yes. Is it beneficial for us as a consumer? I will say yes too. I want to... discover something new. If I know that every single year the same restaurant going to get the same note or the same restaurant going to get the same two, three Michelin star. Okay, if I know that every single year is the same, it's kind of boring. If there is a new one, I would say, there is a new one. my God, he's in Queens, he's in Brooklyn. great, cool. Because most of the time they are in Manhattan. So let's go to discover what it is. And that's going to attract more people. Hopefully, there is nothing political on this choice. Hopefully. It's just focusing on the quality of the produce or a new idea. And I love that. But again, it's great to have new ideas. cuisine, new chef that we are not totally aware of. And it could be the spice that is very, very important in any kind of cuisine. It could be something more on the fish area or more on the meat area, whatever it is. But we need to discover something new. Looking at the same picture every single day becomes boring. If you have a new one, what it is. You try to be more alert of what is new. And hopefully, it's going to help our business in general. So yes, I'm more open to discover something new. And hopefully, it's not political.

Neha Lamba Grover: So when you cook for people from different backgrounds, which you know you've said you do, do you notice how the right way to eat changes depending upon who's watching? Or, I mean, if the host is and who the host is entertaining, I mean, I think am I being too cynical to think that people express their identity through what they order or what they serve.

Olivier Flosse: Yes, they do. They do. And funny enough, couple of weeks ago, I went to this incredible, incredible house when I came inside of the house and the lady bring me to the kitchen. In my mind, I said, that will be the dream kitchen. It was missing absolutely nothing. It was like a professional, professional kitchen. And the lady told me, Olivier, that is all yours. So I start to ask questions. She told me, I don't cook here. So I say, what do mean? No, no, no, no, we eat outside. OK. So I have to have a lady who helped me in the kitchen to tell me how the oven works and that, that, that. And this lady was basically, during my preparation, maybe two hours before the dinner, She was there and looking at what I was doing and she told me, my God, it's too complicated for me. I will never be able to cook. So

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Olivier Flosse: that was funny. yes, people are careful when we don't have any connection before. I send the menus, they want to know what exactly is about. And you do have a lot of people are intrigued at the beginning because some of them never had someone cooking in their house. But at the end, when you see from the first dish, they're looking at each individual one from the appetizer to the main course, cheese, dessert. Even before that, when I prep everything for most of the time, champagne for 45 minutes, I bring some amuse-bouche. they look at every single details. from a phase that they didn't know what's expecting and suddenly you see that they become more more absorbed into the food and the pleasure to see and taste to the point that at the end, most of the time you go back two, three weeks after because they love it. And many of my customers call me back. And that is the reason why I do more and more more wine dinner, I combine the food and the wine. So, yes.

Neha Lamba Grover: And how often do people order a bottle of wine to impress a table rather than for the wine itself?

Olivier Flosse: During this wine dinner, you do have one bottle of wine per course. it happened quite often that people during the dinner, they asked me to go downstairs to their own wine cellar to open more wine. So I will say that. 50 % of the time, the quantity of wine that was supposed to be used during the dinner doubled very easily. Because it's a pleasure, they relax, are at home, they are served, they feel like they're going to the restaurant with not the same cost, and they can really appreciate their house. They can appreciate their own wine and appreciate some friends without being in the kitchen every five seconds, get out. And that is definitely more and more something that people love. And on the top of that, experience in the best way.

Neha Lamba Grover: But very often in trying to express a social identity in front of others, do people order a wine more because they want to impress the others at the table? And I'm talking not just at a custom dinner where, you know, the host has your you're cooking in their homes, but even at a restaurant, more to impress

Olivier Flosse: at the restaurant.

Neha Lamba Grover: than the quality of the wine.

Olivier Flosse: I will say back then when I was in a restaurant business, will say more of the people with less knowledge will ask the sommelier saying, I would like to perfectly my dish with the wine. So that is a majority of the people. Yes, from time to time you feel that people want to be impressed because the only one way for you to understand somebody wants to be impressed is when he said, I don't care about the price, give me the best. Okay, so

Neha Lamba Grover: Got it. Or the most expensive.

Olivier Flosse: are they more focusing on the quality of the wine more than the food is another option. But either way, most important thing is to be happy during your time. With a super bottle of wine where the food will be around the wine or the opposite when the food is a major part of your evening and the wine is just to balance. So either way, I'm okay. But yes, you do have always people who want to impress, but at the end, if they get their pleasure into it, why not?

Neha Lamba Grover: If you Olivier, if you could put one dish and one wine on a table to explain who you are, to express your identity, what would they be?

Olivier Flosse: Well, will tell you, Néa, it will depend with who I'm sharing my wine and my food. But, okay, I'm

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Olivier Flosse: going to say that... I will say if it's my... Is the last time I'm going to eat and drink?

Neha Lamba Grover: No, just something that expresses who you are. So you're gonna put that on the table.

Olivier Flosse: okay. I will say definitely champagne because

Neha Lamba Grover: Okay.

Olivier Flosse: is always champagne something that you open because you are all happy or use a celebration. So I'm type guy like that. So champagne will be definitely, definitely my favorite wine. I will even say McCrug. non-vintage, I will love to have that. And what I will eat, I will eat something that will match perfectly with the champagne. And I will definitely have something linked with the sea, the ocean. So fish, seafood, something easy to enjoy with the saltiness, the salé, as we said in the wine term. will be maybe a full tray of seafood with a nice bottle of champagne. Something fresh, refreshing, and ready for another course and ready for another wine.

Neha Lamba Grover: Is there a y childhood dish that you remember and miss that you're not able to recreate?

Olivier Flosse: Yes, Funny enough, I tried to do that two weeks ago and even so he was superb, but he was not at the same level. My grandfather

Neha Lamba Grover: Is

Olivier Flosse: again, the fisherman, was making octopus with tomato sauce. And for years and years and years I had that and I never, ever... get close to his quality. I still have some memory back then, never changed, still in my mind. And I try and I try and I try. And one day... It was in 2012, I was in Manhattan when the same day I got the grand award by the Wine Spectator, meaning the best wine list in the world. And it was an accomplishment after 10 years working on one wine list, finally get it. It was a lot of emotional feeling and I decided for myself to...

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah.

Olivier Flosse: Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I decided to myself to... to go to one restaurant and I sit down, he was at Maria. And I order a dish where I tomato sauce and octopus. And that was the closest that I could have. He was at Maria and they still have the dish. And when I'm going from time to time to Manhattan, I always try to go to Maria just to have one appetizer on main

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Olivier Flosse: course and test it and remind me my grandfather. So yes, it's difficult. It's very, very, very difficult because we go back to what you were saying, the ingredient.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Olivier Flosse: Back then, he must get some ingredient that we could not get that here.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm-hmm.

Olivier Flosse: As the same maybe, as the same quality. And maybe because he was my grandfather always pulling on the top of the mountain quality wise for his food. Difficult to replicate the same dish that your memory you have. Hopefully one day I will.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, isn't it amazing how much memory gets associated with food, you know, and nostalgia, especially with a place that you want to remember, how often food or a smell is so critical to those those memories. But thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you, Olivier. Thank you for coming on.

Olivier Flosse: Thank you, and thank you to be part of your early morning. And I wish you the best today and hopefully to see you soon.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Olivier Flosse: Thank you.