By JOLENE OGLE
PHOTOS of a large, stone home nestled at the base of a snow-capped mountain illuminate Julien Royer’s phone screen as he proudly shows off his family home.
“Where I am from, it is very green, very peaceful, very quiet,” Julien says of Cantal, central France.
“I am very fortunate to live here as a child. I grew up in the environment where people are cooking. My grandmum, everyone is cooking because we have a farm and we use the produce from the farm.”
Julien flicks through more photos of the family farm while chatting with Noosa Today at the Noosa International Food and Wine Festival. Fluffy rabbits, bees for honey and a donkey, all come to the screen.
“The donkey we don’t eat – he is our friend,” Julien laughs.
From such humble beginnings, it is clear to see why Julien has such a deep love for seasonal produce and artisan products. Voted “The One to Watch” in 2013, Julien is now the Chef de Cuisine of one of Singapore’s best restaurants, JAAN. But, for this young chef, it was never a career choice, but a way of life.
“To me it is not a job. It was not a decision of career; it is more the way we live. We live, we cook. We cook, we live,” he says.
Julien first began to focus his skills when he enrolled in culinary school at 16 years old. After graduation, Julien entered the kitchens of Michel Bras and Bernard Andrieuz at their Michelin starred restaurants, armed with an understanding of how pure and organic ingredients are best for creating fresh dishes.
A belief that continues to guide him as Julien cooks with small-scale, artisan products at JAAN.
“What I sell in my restaurant, the purity and the origin of the products is good quality,” he says.
“We order and they send us a box of vegetables. We don’t know what we are going to get. So we build the menu to accompany whatever arrives. So, we are printing the menu every service, according to what we have. This is how I cook. This is how I learnt.”
“My grandmother, she would go to the garden and she didn’t say ‘oh, I am going to get some tomato and capsicum’. No, she came back and said this is zucchini and this is onion. We are going to eat zucchini and onion. And to me, it makes sense.”
It’s an unconventional technique that seems to be working, with Julien securing JAAN restaurant a platter of awards and accolades including the Award of Excellence for G Restaurant Awards 2013, Certificate of Excellence 2012 from TripAdvisor, as well as the appointment of Friend of Australia by Tourism Australia.
And a friend of Australia, he sure is. Noosa is the most beautiful place in Australia, according to Julien.
“They say you save the best for last, and this is the best,” he says.
“This place is so beautiful.”
