Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Hi Jean-Baptiste.

• Speaker #1

  Hello, how are you?

• Speaker #0

  Good, good. Thank you very much. How are you?

• Speaker #1

  I'm great.

• Speaker #0

  Thank you very much for welcoming us in this beautiful venue. So we are at Olifouc, which is the Chinese restaurant of Black Sheep.

• Speaker #1

  It's our love letter to Hong Kong, yeah. It's our Cantonese restaurant, yes.

• Speaker #0

  Love letter to Hong Kong. It's a good way to frame it. So it's a beautiful restaurant in the heart of Central. We came here just once and one of the... main differences in this restaurant is that you also have Chinese wines, which is a big difference from a lot of other restaurants in Hong Kong. But we'll come back to this.

• Speaker #1

  First, can you introduce yourself? Sure. So my name is Jean-Baptiste Coppeau. Everyone calls me JB, much easier to say. I've been in Hong Kong for six years and a half now. I actually came for Black Sheep in January 2020. So yeah, it's been a beautiful journey so far.

• Speaker #0

  And so you're the head of wines? Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  I mean, my title is the director of wine, but yeah. I overlook all the wine side and all the sommelier team in Black Sheep.

• Speaker #0

  Okay, so what you have in portfolio is like, one, the buying of the wine, purchasing the wines, and two, recruiting the team, training them. Like you would say, this is your...

• Speaker #1

  It's mostly team, yeah. I think, you know, my role now, it's a lot about making sure everyone is in the right place, working on the right project, gets the right support. I make the linguists. between all departments, you know, make sure that the marketing, communication, you know, all the finance side, etc. is all working well together. And I'm here to make sure my team is having the fun they want to have and they can do whatever they want with wine in the restaurants. So we'll come back to Black Sheep in the later stage of this episode. But first, can you describe a bit your passion about wine?

• Speaker #0

  Did you always want to work in the wine industry?

• Speaker #1

  It's a good question. I'm sorry, it's going to be probably like the same story you heard several times coming from a French person, French sommelier. I come from a very classic French family where we always had good food on the table, always had a bit of wine. So I grew up in that environment where going to the restaurant once in a while and on the weekend with parents and grandparents having a bit of wine and good food. So my first passion was actually food. So since I'm like 11, 12 years old, I wanted to go in the kitchen. I wanted to work as a chef. So... In France, we had the opportunity to study professional school very young. So at the age of 15 years old, I went to professional school. I did a professional baccalaureate in cuisine. So I started to learn how to cook. But the good thing is that we were still learning about service, wine, and so many aspects of hospitality and restaurants. And I had that quick opportunity to go and learn, work in restaurants very, very young. you know, working, uh, In weddings and part-time jobs over the weekend, only up to date, like 15 and a half, 16. So I was making a bit of pocket money. And I realized that actually I was more comfortable on the floor speaking with people than cooking. And, you know, through the years after I went for restaurant management, and I realized that I like wine also and like digging a bit more into this. I was like, OK, let me specialize a bit in wines. Wines can only help in my career. And when I did that extra year of specialization in wine in France, we have the governmental certification called the Mors-Commotard Sommelier. When I've done this for an extra year, I realized that wine was much more than a passion, a side passion. I wanted to do this as a job, right? So since then, I've never stopped. I never stopped.

• Speaker #0

  And so your parents were not working in the wine industry before? No, not at all. Just out of passion? Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Look, I would not even say they love wine. They like wine. But look, if they go in a wine region on early days, they might not even go and visit a winery for some reason, right? it's like a bit They like to drink it, but are they really interested and passionate about it? Definitely not.

• Speaker #0

  How did they react when you told them, I want to work as somebody? Were they happy about this?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, look, my parents were very supportive. I think it's about my grandparents. My grandma is still now, she's still worried about asking me, how much do you drink? But now, my parents, they see me happy. They see me thriving with my passion on a professional and also a personal level. So look at... I hope it's what all parents want for their child, right? So ultimately, they took it very good on the earlier stage and even now, yeah.

• Speaker #0

  So you learned this at 18 years old, so you're fully certified in France, so you've made your education. What's your first job then?

• Speaker #1

  So my first... So looking in France, I had the chance to do what we call an apprenticeship, you know, so my BTS and my most common testimony. was studying and working at the same time, which I love because I think at 18 years old, if I didn't have that opportunity, as I was already working on weekend, as I said, I think I would have go and work right away because I wanted to make a bit of money. And I love working with older people than me and passionate people. So that was... Some of my first jobs. So my first job was in a brasserie 33 Cité in Lyon, which was a kind of a brasserie Bocuse style, you know, an average of 120, 250 covers lunch and dinner. So bigger operations, so I learned big volume. But there was a big wine list, like 500, 600 reference. So that was my first step in wine hospitality. And my Mont-Saint-Mathieu sommelier, I did it at La Mer Brassier in Lyon. Ah, yeah,

• Speaker #0

  nice.

• Speaker #1

  To Michelin star restaurant, where I worked for... Just for restaurant. Yeah, like it was... beautiful place to learn all the basics you know it was uh yeah i think back then i had the chance to discover also wines that are now very inaccessible like burgundy especially like back then it was already expensive uh but uh it was tough from being as crazy as it is now and uh i'm very happy that i had to discover zenzawa without even realizing how crazy it would become yeah the only problem with la mer brasier is that you you need to yeah

• Speaker #0

  You have to be like that when you change rooms.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, you're right, you're right. Especially here, you're pretty tall. I'm pretty tall, so I burned my head onto the ceiling quite a few times. I probably lost a bit of health working there. But yeah, it was part of the daily life, yeah. La Mer Brasile is a beautiful restaurant in Lyon, but it's like an old house in the old city of Lyon. So it's a low ceiling in a lot of places,

• Speaker #0

  so it's pretty hard to move around.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it's where all the silk... worker used to be right so that's why it was all low ceiling because they were hanging the silicone on the on the ceiling and to dry it off and now it was it was incredible to work in a place which had that necessary you know where paul book is did his apprenticeship himself like 80 years ago like and

• Speaker #0

  i'm very i'm very thankful i had this kind of opportunity back then yeah and so then after so at la mer brasier you were you were a young sommelier so you were doing the service

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, exactly. Cleaning the glasses, I guess. Yeah, yeah. It took me at least a week before I could even top up water. Maybe a month before topping wine. Maybe three months before taking a coffee order. Yeah, so. But, you know, like, I respect this a lot. You know, I think sometimes we miss those good classics and basics. And look, at least over there, I learned how to do perfect service and how to serve water properly, starting with this, et cetera, et cetera. So it was a beautiful way to start my career. Yeah, I did graduate. I was only 21 years old. And look, Lyon was the end of my chapter. And I look at opportunities. Of course, Paris was an easy next step for me. But my English was not good enough back then. Like my English was actually bad. And I knew that if I wanted to do something good in my career in hospitality, English was very, very important. And back then... Brexit was voted, but not yet in place. It was still, it was in 2015, yeah, 16, yeah. So it was still easy to go to the UK. So I took a job interview with Le Belmont, Le Manoir 4 Seasons in Oxford.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  So to me, it's just a restaurant, one of the oldest restaurants in the UK. And look, I always joke around this because if tomorrow I take a young French sommelier, with the level of English that I had back then on interview. I don't think I will hire this gentleman. And look, people gave me my chance back then. And it was a very, very difficult interview. I could not understand anything. But look, I guess my passion, my energy gave me that opportunity. And I took my French car, drove all the way to the countryside of England in Oxfordshire and worked there for a couple of years. It was fabulous. I started to work with wine from... around the world it was still a french environment so i still had those obviously familiarities that i had back to france but the international wine list it was uh it was fascinating yeah yeah what i hear from people who did work in the uk especially in the in the sommelier and and like service side is that you have the opportunity to access wines that are really from all around the world which is completely different than france and

• Speaker #0

  i guess you must have seen that between la mer brasier and and this other restaurant you I guess at La Mer Brassière, we're having mainly French wines. And people tend to say that in the UK, it's really wines from all around the world.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Oh, it's even worse than this. When I was in La Mer Brassière, it was Burgundy and Rhone Valley. Beaujolais back then was not even on the hype. You know, it was not as famous. So, you know, at La Mer Brassière, we were serving Beaujolais. Part of the wine pairing as a blind tasting was a cheese course. for people to actually discover it. If not, people will not even let us serve Beaujolais in Lyon. Now, I believe it has changed a lot. I've seen people drink a lot of Beaujolais in Lyon. But I've seen in Lyon, people still don't drink much Bordeaux, right? And I didn't drink a lot of Bordeaux when I was back to Lyon. And I had the chance to discover Bordeaux when I actually arrived in the UK. So I even started to discover France as a whole a little bit more moving to the UK. And then, yes, I started to work with wine from everywhere. And it was amazing. Some of my first services, could tell you uh all the villages of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, you know, Sauternes and things like this. And when people were asking me the great variety of Alpodichéla, I could not even reply. And like my head, somebody looking at me and say, yeah, it's like, it's like knowing Sauvignon Blanc for Sancerre. You should know your classics for all those iconic appellations around the world. So I was like, okay, this is all you need to learn.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So it was fascinating. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  How long did you stay there?

• Speaker #1

  I stayed about 20 months. Yeah, 20 months. Yeah. I learned a lot of good things. But it was obviously still a French restaurant. And after doing a year and a half, in fact, I asked for a promotion and they told me that I was not ready, which I think was a lot of, once again, in a position that I am now, I think they were very right. You know, I was still a little too young and my English still was not good enough. So, you know, I look at myself in the mirror and said, well, what do I want to do next? And I look out for jobs around and found a good opportunity in Oxfordshire in a restaurant called Sad Ben's, Sad Ben's restaurants. So in Nottingham. And this restaurant changed the way I am and my career. So the interview was great. It was with a gentleman called Laurent Richer, which is Master Sommelier, which now works in the Netherlands as a wine supplier. And he's the one I would call a mentor that taught me how to be very curious about everything. As much as he was French, he never spoke to me in French until he finished his job at Sad Bains because he had the same kind of struggle when he arrived to the UK like 20 years before me or 15, 20 years before me. So too many people were speaking in French to him and he didn't progress quick enough in English. So for him, it was like any French people I will have in my team, I will only speak to them in English so they will learn faster. And thanks to him, you know, my English improved much, much faster after this. And the company itself, Sad Bains, it's a restaurant I highly encourage you to try. Next time you're in the UK, it's worth the detour. It's a restaurant that Sad Bains and Amanta Bains, the owners, have built from the first brick until where they are now. You know, they started, it took them many years before getting a first star and then an extra bunch of years before getting the second one and being elected. several times like best restaurant of the uk's and things like this and i have a lot of admiration for play people like this that do everything on their own you know it's easier when you have a bigger company behind or we have when you have hotels and but you know when you when you dedicate your whole life it's uh it's something very very special so that's the restaurants that changed me completely i uh coming coming from france learning at la mer brasier and then at um at le manoir I was in an environment that was a little bit more French, a bit more posh, if I may say, where I can be quite loud. Often, I was being told to speak less loud, you know, a bit more quietly, to be a little bit more elegant, to be a bit less myself. And when I first started at SatBains, Amanda and Sat were both telling me, oh, your energy is amazing. When you're loud, it's great. Everyone wants to listen to you in the dining room. And I was like, wow, I can be loud in the dining room. That's so cool. people encouraged me to be who I am. And that's when I realized that, wow, hospitality, even fine dining, because it was still a two-mission restaurant, it's not only one recipe. There can be a thousand ways of doing things. And that's when I realized that, yeah, France is good. French culture is amazing. But there's just so, so, so much more around the world. And that's so cool when you start discovering this.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, and it doesn't have to be boring. It's not because you're in an amazing restaurant that you need to be... fully silent, almost invisible. You can also create a relationship with the table you're serving, with the people around you.

• Speaker #1

  Oh, 100%. You need to have fun. I mean, we all work so hard in hospitality. If you don't have that element of fun, why are you here? Like, we're here in the industry of people, you know, like, of making people smile, making people forget about their problem. And when they come in the dining room, they come to have a good time, you know. Like, 99% of the guests coming in the dining room come to have a good time. There's no guests coming with an intention of having a bad time. They might have a bad day, but they don't come at the restaurant ultimately to keep this bad day going. They want this bad day to stop and become great, right? So we're here to make people have a great time. Do you speak English to your French staff? No, not as much. I must be honest. On the floor, yes. When there's other people around, I force myself because for me, it's a matter of respect that people around understand. I'm not perfect. I sometimes speak French. I'm still a very proud Frenchman. But any team member which I feel really need to speak English consistently to improve, then yes, I will make the effort to speak to them all the time in English.

• Speaker #0

  And so you arrived in Hong Kong just after this experience?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So look, it's funny because at Sad Bains, I got hired by Laurent Richer, the head sommelier, master sommelier. And then after a year in the company, he announced to us that he was leaving and relocating in the Netherlands with his family. And that's when I faced a lot of, you know, changes, you know. And that's also when I learned a lot because in my mind, it was only one. I started to discover that obviously there's many types of cuisine, many types of wine, but I was still not at the stage where I understood that there were many ways of working. There was not only one way of operating wine. I was still very old school in my mind of being, wine should be served that way, there should be that order, there should be this way of introducing a wine. And there have been several head sommeliers coming after Laurent at Sainte-Bain. And it was hard for me to adapt to new head sommeliers. But once again, Amanda and Saab did trust me a lot. And actually, I became assistant head sommelier in that restaurant at that moment. They did need my help to introduce that new head sommelier in the place. And funny enough, they even offered me the position of head sommelier back then. I was young. I was only like 24 years old. And I made my mind. I wanted to leave the UK. I love the opportunities that England gave me, especially with Brexit coming very soon. It was... I want you to try something out at least. I was not against coming back to the UK at a point, but I was like, I want to go and see something else around the world and even beyond Europe. And look, I have a tool that I love, which is called LinkedIn. And I just texted some sommeliers on LinkedIn. I texted some sommeliers in Hong Kong, in Bangkok, in Singapore, in Tokyo. And I said, hey, how is work in Asia? Do you recommend? And funny enough, a lot of people told me Hong Kong is great. Even the people that was in Singapore or some in Bangkok. Especially the people in Singapore.

• Speaker #0

  They said Hong Kong is great.

• Speaker #1

  Exactly. I don't know. For some reasons, there was a bit of spotlight on Singapore back then. That Singapore was booming a bit. There was a few documentaries that I've seen on the French television. So I was a bit more attracted about Singapore. But yeah, as you said, there's a few sommeliers that were in Singapore, that are actually still in Singapore, that used to work in Hong Kong. told me like Singapore is great but maybe on the later stage in your career go go to Hong Kong first go and have fun and uh after making some research I was like okay Hong Kong Hong Kong look fun and uh I kept using LinkedIn so there I wanted to make the move I sent my CV to a few contacts in LinkedIn and uh and my CV uh got forwarded to a few restaurants and uh funniness as my background was very fine dining I wanted to go and keep going on fine dining you know so I send my CV to Caprice, to... Shangri-La to all fine dining places, right? And a few people came back to me saying, look, we were not looking for any sommeliers, but there is a company that's growing very fast in Hong Kong that's always looking for sommelier called Black Sheep. I was like, okay, interesting. Let me check it out. And I did not even have time to send my CV to Black Sheep that Arnaud Bardary, the previous director of wine in place in 2019. send me an email saying hey i heard you're looking for a job i received your cv from a couple of people and uh this couple of people were actually people you i'm sure you know there was uh johan justin that's now the head of fine wine for carrie's i used to be at chargill back then there was francois ferron so i used to be at uh at tate uh that's now working in uh in north point in a private club there's actually people which i still know now and that helped me actually to be in touch with Arno. So, I'm a huge believer in relationship and connection. I think it's such a small world, ultimately. And I'm so thankful of people like this that helped me, at least just to follow my CV. And thanks to them, I am where I am in some ways. So that was cool. That was cool. They helped me well.

• Speaker #0

  So Arnaud was actually holding your current position in Black Sheep. Maybe Black Sheep was less big than it is today, growing, but less big. He left a few years ago. Three years ago. So now he's...

• Speaker #1

  Four years ago, 2022, yeah.

• Speaker #0

  And now he's working at Watson's. We actually did a full episode about him. So if you guys are listening to this podcast or watching it, you can access the episodes of Arnaud. We'll put the link in the description.

• Speaker #1

  So he recruits you and you arrive in Hong Kong. Same thing, sommelier in... in a specific restaurant of Black Sheep. Yeah, indeed. The hiring process was actually very quick. So one of the reasons I signed up for Black Sheep, Arnaud took me on an interview and obviously asked me, do you have any other interviews? I said, yes. And I think he realized that if he hurry up, he can send me, he should send me an offer quick, which he did. Look, what was promised by Arnaud on the interview was exactly what was Black Sheep back then and Black Sheep now, a growing... a fast-growing company with obviously a fast-growing team. And yeah, back then, I think there was eight, nine sommeliers in place. I took the first interview in July 2019, and I joined in January 2020. And yeah, when I joined, there was about 10, 11 sommeliers within the team, already a very strong team. Obviously, Arnaud is a master sommelier. There was a couple of, three advanced sommeliers in the team. So the rest of the team was already certified by Court of Master. There was Kevin Liu that's now a master sommelier in Taiwan. So strong team, very impressive people. Like I came into that team, I was like, well, I'm just a small guy. But look, I love the challenge. That's what I wanted. And I joined as a head sommelier. And my first restaurant was Buenos Aires Polo Club. which is in Social Tower, previously called Long Quai Fang Tower, which is, funny enough, our first location. This is the first restaurant we opened back in 2012. It was called Boccaria. So we closed a few years after and decided to open a Buenos Aires Polo Club, which is our Argentine steakhouse. I should go there.

• Speaker #0

  You have so many restaurants in the group. I don't even know if it's Black Sheep or not Black Sheep. I should go there.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful place for steak, it's also A wine list that's very specialized, that's Argentinian steakhouse, Argentinian wine list. And I arrived in an environment, you know, which was once again completely new for me. As much as I used to work with a bit of Argentinian wine in the UK, obviously as our wine list was international, you will have only one or two matchbacks on your wine list. And then I arrived in Buenos Aires, put a club, boom, 14 matchbacks in front of you. Let's go and dig deep into it and let's learn about it. And I love how we were, I fell in love very quickly on how detailed we do things in Black Sheep. And now we go full on into the story. And then as much as sommeliers, we have that opportunity of, you know, that freedom of creating seats. We also have the support teams, you know, we will speak, I'm sure, a bit more about it later on. But the communication teams, the design teams that help us to make beautiful one-eats and to speak about it. And that's something I love. So Buenos Aires Pro Club, yes, was my first place. And six months only after, I started to work a little bit in Carbon.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  And that was... huge, huge place for me. I was a little less comfortable in Carbone at first because it reminded me a little bit Brasserie that I used to walk back into Lyon, but with that American style. I've never experienced and seen any kind of scenery and food in the UK or in France before. So something completely new for me. Huge table. I started to open my first Jirobois, Matusalem and things like this. I was like, wow. It was incredible. Something big, big seller to take care of, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah, after down the line, I remember we had a beautiful pop-up called Chalet des Alpes in December 2021. It was COVID time. You know, everyone, everything was closed around the world. It was not fun in Europe, but funny, like surprisingly in Hong Kong, there was no COVID cases. But Hong Kong was closed. So people wanted to party, party big in Hong Kong. So the restaurants were crazy busy. We did that pop-up Chalet des Alpes, which... It's something that was very close to my heart. My parents live in the Alps. I never lived there, but it's a wine region that I know very, very well. I'm in Savoie in France, but I like also Swiss wine a lot. And, you know, also Alto Aldige, Vare d'Aosta in Italy, all those Alpine regions. It's wines that I like to drink on a personal level. And you would have told me when I started my career, you know, when I started doing Binos Pirelli, that I will do cheese. It was literally raclette and fondue and serving some of the... best wine from Savoie, from Switzerland, from Alto Aldite, from Jura.

• Speaker #0

  In Hong Kong.

• Speaker #1

  In Hong Kong. I would have never believed you. And look, at the time of my life, and I was like, wow. Look, when you look at Polo Club, Carbon, or you look even like Belon, New Punja Club, like incredible black sheep restaurants that we have, we've been over investment and time behind. So you understand why it's a solid restaurant. But when you see a pop-up, like a one-month-and-a-half project, Like, Charlie Desalbes, that was done with so much attention to detail, just for a month and a half, that we had the opportunity to do a winery that was so much fun, and we served just so much wine. I was like, wow, like, how far can we go with this company? And Black Sheep was only nine years old back then, and we were doing things that some companies would never do in their career, right? So I was mind-blown, and at the same time, we were working on a beautiful project called Grand Majestic Session. which is our Sishuanese restaurant that opened in Landmark. And that was my first wine list. Arnaud Bagzane came to me and said, look, JB, I want you to make that wine list. And I was very touched. And that was the first time that I got to create something I wanted.

• Speaker #0

  It must be very hard for Sishuanese food to do the wine list because the texture you have in the mouth, the taste even is so specific. not aggressive but so present in your mouth that finding the good ones what ones did you choose for C-Shows? It was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was it was

• Speaker #1

  Look, when first I've been told you're going to open a Sichuan restaurant, I was like, okay. Arnaud did the good thing of giving you the project. Yeah, Jamie,

• Speaker #0

  it's time for you to first open a Sichuan restaurant.

• Speaker #1

  And look, I knew about Sichuan pepper, but I didn't know there was an old cuisine around it. Once again, we're in Hong Kong, it was COVID. We were all locked in Hong Kong. I didn't have the chance to go and visit China. Then I was learning a little bit about Chinese cuisine as a... as a whole but you know like so big crazy right and uh so first thing i did i went on on food panda like delivery and i ordered some szechuanese food let's give it a try and i remember that first bite i was like oh oh my god how are we gonna do this and uh i was already taking care of one of my personal favorite restaurant black sheep new punja club which is our one mission star punjabi restaurant you know which has obviously a little bit of heat and uh and spices in the cuisine right And I first, you know, made that very quick shortcut of like working a little bit with the same wine, like a bit of a richer Riesling or bigger Chenin Blanc or Chardonnay. And look, it didn't work. It was like a completely different spectrum, you know, like those mala texture and flavors. Like Sichuan cuisine has like more than 20 different flavors. It's so complex. And it's a balance of spice. We also have some dishes which are very mild. And it's like how you play with every single... plates in the middle of the of the of the table that i was like i was actually you know thinking like we're gonna have to rethink it all and also look the restaurant was in landmark he's in landmark sorry and uh you look at the players around i was like wow it's another level yeah you need to be serious yeah like in front you have amys that have incredible french wine is you have auto amazo just under that has crazy italian wine list you're all buchon back then there is there is you know Mandarin Oriental there's so many right and and I was like, okay, I'm not going to have the budget of Robuchon and Otorimezo to make that wine list, but we're going to have to make something cool, something different. So we've been thinking, thinking, thinking, and we came with a crazy idea of classifying the wine list based on the vintage, on the Zodiac sign. So you should take the year of the Tiger, it's 2022, 2010, 1998, 86, etc, So loop. I was actually on the hike and I had that idea popping into my mind, you know, and I was like, well, that's crazy. And I went back to work the day after. And what I did is I combined the wineries of Carbon and Buenos Aires Polyclinic, put them together. And I just tried to see if naturally, you know, with wineries that was already made, not taught that way, if it could already work, if we could already fill up all the 12 Zodiac signs. And we could. And we could. So I went to Arnaud back then, that after presented that idea to Asim, our founder. And look, the idea got approved. There was a bit of back and forth, I remember, back then with the branding team on how we bring this up. And look, we had our support to make this successful. I remember on the first day we opened, our founder, Asim, called me out and said, look, we're going to have to take this very seriously on the long term. It's not just opening it and making it work at the beginning. It's going to have to be a long-term project that you're going to have to take care of for a long time. And I'm so proud, like a year after on Star Wine East, we won the special jury prize and Gold Asia. And we got selected again. And we opened a lot of wines at place. That was the first approach. But we also realized after opening it that champagne was actually working very well with the Chinese food. Like that freshness, that tension. And the bubble also. The bubble. It's kind of, you know, it's a part in your mouth. You know, like you have a... Like all the spice and incredible flavors of the dishes. And then that extra texture of bubbles and creaminess with all the champagne worked very well. So we went a bit deeper on to the champagne selection. But yeah, so basically you have a strong champagne selection. And then this international wineries that focus on vintages with wine from all around the world. So it's a lot of maintenance in that wineries. All the sommeliers that work there probably hate me for that crazy idea. And all the suppliers that support us on that project. Because, you know, if you have a win-win change from...

• Speaker #0

  From one moment to another, I mean, from one week to another, they kind of screw it up and it doesn't bring the same story. So we reprint a bit more than other wine lists, but it's very satisfying. And look, the story has been evolving a lot after this, you know, like obviously I opened that place and there's been quite a few other sommeliers. There's been a phenol mag that I respect a lot that now works in Macau. That also put a bit of himself in that wine list. There is Nicolas Hichem, which is one of my... My strongest guys in the team are still with us after four years. That's overlooking, you know, all the folks that we had, Belon, Jean-Pierre, that also built a lot of things. And I had Chad, which was one of my strongest second hand. I have Igor that's working there now and so many others. You know, everyone has been adding a few extra bits into it. And it's probably one of the programs which I feel to be the most versatile and fun. Some programs are obviously very specialized in our world, but this one is the most crazy, I would say. What's the secret to making a good wine list? Look, in Black Sheep, all our restaurants have a very, very strong identity. And our role is just to make that identity even stronger and to add that extra layer. of story around wine. Like, it needs to be bland and to make sense with whatever we offer. Of course, if we look at some of the latest opening we had, you know, Jean-Pierre, obviously the French bistro, Brasserie, and we could not go and make a Spanish wine list, right? It had to be French, right? And we had to go full on to the story we want to tell that will represent all French wine region. We are a bistro, so we don't go only with the fancy big names. Even though we are in Hong Kong, we want to highlight the small regions. So we really, you know, add that extra layer. And then there is a restaurant, as we spoke, like Grand Magistre Six Sessions, where you have a cuisine that has a little less wine identity, where there's a little less wine to be paired along this cuisine. And this is where we can bend the creative muscle a little bit more. Like Prince and the Peacock is one of the latest beautiful wineries we have created. Prince and the Peacock, it's... It's, we call it cuisine of India. It's, or we pay homage to different kingdoms that have been ruling India across centuries and centuries. It's cuisine from all across the country. So we played around this and based the wine on the different families that have been ruling India. And, you know, we're just bringing that little extra story, right? Without being gimmicky. It's just like, you want to get into the story, the story is there for you. You just want to go and choose your wine, just turning the pages and finding your classic Chablis or your classic Pinot Noir from Central Otago, then it will be there. But the story is here for us to tell a bit of an extra layer and for us to have fun, to connect. So the way it works is you have the corporate office,

• Speaker #1

  or I don't know how do you say that, but basically the opening team that calls you and say, JB, we have this. new location it would be this type of food this level of uh budget uh like this type of uh yeah budget per guest um here is the story now do the wine list and you you try to like think about the story a bit more see how you can display the the wine list uh on display and source the wines in a good way yeah exactly

• Speaker #0

  Look, it's even better than this. Like we work very closely with our founder and CEO, Asim, which I have the chance to catch up with him quite often and actually discuss all these incredible projects. So we have that relationship to build a fabulous thing altogether. And yeah, it kind of starts like this. You know, we have this beautiful project coming and we need obviously to build a strong program around it. awesome program uh some some restaurants obviously will be very linked to some people like jean-pierre it's obviously the story of mark hoffman which is one of our partner which is one of uh our team members and be here for for more than 10 years now it's his story so this is mark that sat down with me and told me like jb we're gonna have to create a cool french one is then this is how the discussion up here but look at we We have that trust and it's fabulous. You know, it started from the Somalis that first started in Black Sheeps and Arnaud that created that strong foundation of the Somali team and how we've been keep on building this across the year. And we have that trust. And I never take this for granted. You know, every single day, it's another day to prove how good we are and that we're the right people to keep having that good ideas. And I'll be honest with you, sometimes it's not only us. Falcone, for example, which is one of our Napoletan pizzeria pasta restaurants that we have in IFC and also on the Peak and also in Dubai. So the wine is, we first came a little bit too precise. We came with an idea of a map and how we're going to speak about the wines of Campania or Sicily. And the creative guys came saying like, no, you guys are too complicated and too precise. We want to be a bit more fun. And they came actually with one of our funniest wine is in uh, in Black Sheep, you know, with some, there's a little line about each wine. Like, for example, one of the wine is saying, like, it was on our table in our hotel and we just drink it and we liked it. So it came on the wine. If you finish that bottle, then you will have a second bottle at the same price. You know, kind of funny things like this. You have a Prosecco, it says, basically like champagne without the French Fonfou. Like little fun things that, to be honest, as a sommelier, I would have never write. But, you know, that's also the butchery of Black Sheep. We work with people that, are here to find the right balance and tell us like, look, JV, it's cool. But you guys are maybe a little too precise.

• Speaker #1

  Too geeky on something. Do you guys have restaurants that are like in the packs? Like what I want to say by that is, do you work on location parameters or do you have like 20 ideas of restaurants that are almost ready to go into operation? And you're just like waiting for the opportunity of a good real estate deal or something that is happening. And you're like, OK, in this place, we'll deploy this restaurant and everything is already good.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I guess a bit of a mix of this. Like I'm not there. I'm not to a stage where I fully yet understand all these parameters. And I don't have the whole stories. And between you and I, I'm also happy to still have a bit of the magic behind this. been being in Black Sheep for that long and not to know exactly how all of these places came to life. But look, 90 plus percent of our stories started from people, you know, people that had that connection with our founder, with the city, with the location. And it was just things that was making sense at the right place. Of course, you know, when we had some new opportunities in other locations, then we had maybe to go with maybe So some projects that we knew would be working, right? And that obviously had what we call a proof of concept, you know, especially when we went abroad, you know, opening in Dubai and Singapore. We went with, obviously, Lavash, Nesina, Falcon Age, which are stories that, you know, it's not only about financial success, it's also our pride, you know. Yeah, it has to work. Yeah, it hurts like 200%, you know. It's places that we stand by, long stories that resonate with us and we are happy to keep on telling. on and on that story to new markets. And also, all this story has been evolving. You know, Holy Fook that we're at now, it's a second story, right? We are the first Holy Fook that we have actually completely renovated to be in the Holy Fook we're at now. And Chef Archan is our head chef that obviously tells a very, very true Hong Kong story, which we all love. That was not the case before. It was maybe a little bit more discovery back then. So, yeah, it evolves, which is also fascinating, which is also something I like a lot. You know, we have Maison Libanaise that's under renovation now, and we're going to come with a whole new story around this. And I cannot wait. You know, like, it was fun. You know, it was a right place at the right time. But now we're going to come with something, you know, still very approachable, very, you know, neighborhood Lebanese restaurant, but maybe a tiny bit more refined, just a little bit more, yeah, mature, right? Like, we all grow, right? Like, so... We're going to do a little bit more things around wine, around food, etc., etc. So it's fun. It's very fun.

• Speaker #1

  Let's talk about Olifug, the place in which we are. So as I told in the introduction of this podcast, we came here once with my own for now. And what we love was, of course, the cuisine, but also the wine list, which is 100%, well, not 100%, but... which is made of Chinese wines. You can still order your classic things if you don't want Chinese wines. But it's one of the places in which you can taste Chinese wines in Hong Kong, which is actually pretty rare on the market for now. Can you tell us a bit more about the story of Olifouc and also the story of this wine list and of the wines you're serving here?

• Speaker #0

  So look, Olifouc is 10 years old. And as I said, Olifouc started with a different story. And for a bit more than four years ago now, we decided to go into that very authentic story with Chef Archan. That has traveled the world. She worked in Singapore. She worked in Australia. But she's from Hong Kong. It's her home. you She joined us in the spirit, in the idea of really telling the Hong Kong story, obviously around food, but also a little bit more than just food, right? She came as a real entrepreneur, and I think she started more, obviously, on the culinary side, but now she's so important in our world, and she's also telling another story with Pen Leng Jen, which is one of our other Cantonese stories. Going back to Oli Fouque. When we opened that second Rolifouc, that second story, we kept the same wine list and the same stories that we had on the previous Rolifouc. That was a very versatile and very eclectic wine list. Wine from all around the world, young winemakers from Australia, from Sicily, from California, from Chile, from smaller regions in France, etc. Which I would say was like so many wines, you know. But it was good. Look, it was some great wines. It was working well. And, but I was stopping there. And then one day we had actually a meeting with actually Asim, our founder. And he came back to us saying that he had a few feedbacks from friends and external partners, etc. Around Holyfuck. And one actually, one of the partners at the wine list was missing a little bit of... point of view a little bit of spice a little bit of something to say about it it was maybe once again too geeky right and look we have to give back to to cesar what what is to cesar and and this is truly uh i think i started that uh that uh that first talk on saying guys we need to have something a little bit more unique and uh and on that first screen you said like guys i know you can be crazy tell us we we do a chinese one we all look at each other a bit in the room saying like oh well maybe it's a little too crazy and look at first that it to start with Chinese wine. I think the first time I tasted a Chinese wine was in 2016-17. And I tried a few interesting things, but it was... It was a little bit early. Yeah, it was a little early. But when I arrived in Hong Kong, I started to taste a few more, which I think were interesting. We had a few already listed in Drommage and Succession. And I think this idea came around the end of 2022, beginning of 2023. And we were like, OK, let's go. Let's go, let's go. And we were like, okay, it's going to be very hard at that stage to do a full Chinese wine. So we're going to keep what we call a summary selection. And then printing, after printing, we've been refining it, adding more and more wineries, more and more regions. So we started, obviously, I think only with Ningxia, Shandong and Yunnan. You know, now we represent so many. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  you had Xinjiang as well today. Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  you know, we have like so many, so many, so many regions. But... Yeah, I think we started with only like 20 wineries. I think now we are more than 45, 50 wineries on the wineries. And it's not stopping there. We already have a few more coming on the next printing. And look, it works. You know, like people speak about it. It's interesting because we're all taught that people will speak a lot about it like in a bad way. People will be like, it's too crazy. It's too extreme. It's too much. But not at all. I think as long as the wines are good, you know, you're happy to talk about it in a good way. If the wines you were serving were bad, but you were just serving them because they are Chinese, then it makes no sense.

• Speaker #1

  But like, it makes no sense for, it wouldn't make any sense for any wine list to do this. But since the wines are good and it matches the places, the atmosphere,

• Speaker #0

  I think it's just amazing. No, I like what you're saying. And I think it's an amazing point. And we've done that exercise with Buenos Aires Polo Club that's very focused on Argentinian wine. Also, Azuzne Chianti, which is focused on Toscan wine. And in this restaurant, we've made ourselves a promise that we're not going to list just to list. We're not going to start listing the next Argentinian wineries that's going to come in town. Yeah, just because they're Argentinian. Exactly. It needs to be good. It needs to be wines that we like. And in fact, we will love that exercise with Holy Fouque and with Chinese wine because there's a lot of good wine in China. There is... A lot of bad wines. I mean, there are people learning. Let's say it that way. Let's be a bit nicer. Because I'm just a sommelier. I don't know how to make wine. Tomorrow you put me in a winery. I know on paper. You give me grapes, I'm not going to make you a good result.

• Speaker #1

  But it's because the fine wine culture, producing fine wine is relatively recent in China as well. They've been doing this for maybe 15 years. yeah so the time that you learn the time that you have the first good feedback from the market then you improve and everything so it's like recent wine industry yeah but i agree plenty of wines are not super good the last tasting i did i didn't have anything bad i had a lot of things that was standard like uh could have been bordeaux like random bordeaux superior or this wine could have been the same and few exceptional things that uh like really have their you know their really different feeling really their taste really something.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, they have personality. You know, I think if you've been to Ningxia, I think, like me, you are very amazed about this big chateau that looks like they've been here for centuries, like the one we have in France. They reconstructed it five years ago. It's incredible. I was laughing. I love it. But look, also, as a French person, I'm proud. I'm proud of it.

• Speaker #1

  I'm impressed by it. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  But I think it's also great that a lot of wineries find their identity see in the statutory work. with other gravity and understood that you know to make a premium wine a fine wine it's not just about putting it in new french oak and and and doing extra batonage on the white and extra extraction on the reds it's it's about having personality and now there's so many good things it's uh it's it's fun it's very fun you served us a red wine as well uh so it's a it's a chinese wine so we have here so we now on the glass was a wine of of pushing me out so it's uh It's a winery we love a lot in China. It's actually Clara Wong, which represents them. She's part of the family. It's a winery that's located in the northwest part of China, and they focus mostly on grapes that are not the most famous, the most international. So they actually have some Béhichon, Sapé-Ravie, which are grapes which are originally from... from, sorry, I'm losing my words, from, it's going to come back to me.

• Speaker #1

  What is the name of the grape variety?

• Speaker #0

  Baychun and Sapé Ravi. Yeah, from Georgia. Finally coming back to me.

• Speaker #1

  Very precise. Everything comes from Georgia in the wine industry. Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  it's really, yeah. So, Los Solucs, they have a lot of personalities. The wines are great, from Xinjiang. Once again, it's something a little different. They are based in Hong Kong. We know them well. And we had the chance to discover them early. Yeah, I first met them in 2020. And yeah, we've done a few wine dinners with them. We have most of their wine represented here. And they're growing also. You know, it's wineries that like to get feedback from us. Like when we do tasting with us, they pull out their notebook and their pen. And they take notes about what we say about their wines. They share with the winemakers and they see how they can improve. They really value us as business partners to do more things. That's so cool.

• Speaker #1

  I think ultimately, especially for the Chinese wineries, this is crucial for them because they arrive at a point where they technically master their process and it's perfect in the way that they know how to make wine. The question is, how do you make wine that unlocks a new market? And for this, you need the feedback of your market. And they are actually very good at... having this feedback loop yeah maybe better than a lot of european wineries and i saw an estate having too much for example having too much reds the markets wanted whites and so they they started making blonde noir uh yeah like that and being like yeah now we do blonde noir it's white people love it it's original and stuff and so they they also have this uh this freedom of doing it but also this mindset of wanting to do a product people want and that people will consume.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, products that people want and also products that they like first, right? A lot of them drink wine.

• Speaker #1

  They are very serious wine. Yeah, they are serious wine drinkers.

• Speaker #0

  They've been drinking some of the best wine around the world. They know what they're talking about. Also, in China, in the industry, it's incredible how fast they learn and grow. Nicolas just came back from Shandong, from Long Dai, Look, he was impressed. He was impressed of how everyone could speak French, English, and obviously Mandarin. Especially there.

• Speaker #1

  Everyone speaks French.

• Speaker #0

  Knowledge is incredible. And it's so precise, the way they speak about wine. No, it's great for the world of wine. It's fabulous.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it's great. You told me you have a new project coming. You told me I can't say too much about it.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, there is something cool coming for wine lovers before the end of the year. I can't say too much now, but I hope to see you there. And so wine lovers, we will have something for us. I'm very excited about it. I cannot wait.

• Speaker #1

  All right, so then guys, don't forget to subscribe. Go check the social networks of Blackchip or of JV and you will be sure to be informed of what's coming. Great, I think we talked about a lot of things. One of the things that you told me at the beginning of this interview was that one of your job here is to make sure you have basically a functioning team of sommelier. I guess you're always... recruiting or changing the team um so i guess knowing black sheep a little bit everything is well uh structured and working well so everything must be on like black sheep carriers or something like that uh yeah no yeah we have our um obviously on our website we have the carrier carrier

• Speaker #0

  link we also have every few weeks we have a little carrier career fair and an opportunity to meet some of us so But yeah, look, also we are very, very approachable and accessible. You know, it's easy to contact me on LinkedIn or directly to any Blacksheep email address. And it's something I encourage. Like it's something that I appreciate a lot for the last year or two is that it's becoming easier and easier to recruit young talent. I get contacted by a few people that actually want to come and work with us that are referred by previous team members or actual team members. it's fantastic look a lot of people sometimes will tell you it's a new generation, they don't want to work they don't want to work as hard, they don't want to learn I don't believe into this at all it's this incredible young generation that actually are even hungrier than some older generation from my point of view that have that understanding of uh of evolving, growing, that things move fast. And we work with people from all around the world, locally and obviously internationally. And it's fabulous to see how we all complement each other. Some people have background in hotels, some people in cruise, some people in fine dining, some people even in winemaking. And we all learn from each other. Some people like a bit more classical style of wine, some people like a bit more modern, some people are more conventional, some people are... more into biodynamic it's always funny when we have tastings around biodynamic wine and the subjects come onto the table I love it I'm like let's listen and see how how this ping pong game is gonna is gonna go you know like there was some some good debate but it's always very respectful and then and ultimately we just make wines wine lists that we stand by and that we that we like a lot yeah yeah all right so if you guys are looking for a job you

• Speaker #1

  If there are young sommeliers listening to that and you want to come to Hong Kong, you will find everything you need. I will put the link to Black Sheep website in the description anyway. So you have all the information. And if you want good places to have dinner and drink wine, you will also have all the information. JB, thank you very much for this. It was a very, very great interview. I think we could continue talking about other restaurants that you have. Take all the wine that you have. I'm going into details, but we'll do that in the next episode. I have three last questions. The first one is, do you have a book recommendation for me?

• Speaker #0

  Look, I think Inside Burgundy by Jasper Morris is something which is fascinating. You know, and I love that when you can find more information in a book than you can even online. And I love having that book next to me when I want to dig deep into Burgundy. It's incredible. Like to have something as detailed. I know a lot of people want to do this in so many other regions. And I have so much respect for Master of Wine for their dedication and how precise it can be around wine. And I think Jasper Morissa has done it so well with that book. I highly recommend it.

• Speaker #1

  Do you have a recent wine that you tasted and you love?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I mean, recently, you know, Hong Kong is a very, very, very special place for wine. And sometimes we forget the chance that we have. doing Incredible tasting, tasting that would not happen anywhere else around the world. And last month, we had the chance, thanks to our partner, TNA Ten Cellars, to do a tasting of Sadi family wine from South Africa, from Swartland mainly. And John Lucas, the owner, is the official supplier of these wines and actually did a tasting of all their cuvées. side by side. I mean, we tasted like around 14 wines, I think. And look, even if you go to Ebensadi in South Africa, I'm not sure it's going to open all the Cubes side by side. I don't even think Ebensadi will do this at any stage, but sometimes you probably want to do it. And that was fabulous. I'm crazy about those wines. Like I've got a couple of, I mean, I've got a South African and a Zimbabwean sommelier in my team that used to work in South Africa. So I maybe fall in love with South African wine and have a lot on a personal level. And I had the chance. for once you taste them all side by side and it's just incredible like african wines are crazy yeah yeah it's crazy but i think it's more about the moment like you just step back and you're like what just happened like i just taste it and it's not it's not cheap wine but it's not the most expensive wine in the world you know like i could have mentioned some crazy berry tastings that i did and you know crazy napa or things like this napa napa tasting it's not it was not the most expensive tasting that i've done recently but it's just like i'm lucky Like, even going there, once again, I don't think I would have had the chance to taste all this wine. So Hong Kong is great. Like, it's cool.

• Speaker #1

  And finally, who is the next person I should interview?

• Speaker #0

  Look, you met already quite a few people in Hong Kong and in Asia. There is one person that we're kind of the same age that I respect a lot in the industry called Jefferson Liu. So he's a CEO of East Miss West Hong Kong. He started in the wine industry more or less at the same time as me. And look, he's been developing this incredible portfolio. He's one of the main suppliers of wine in China. So they have their branch in China and then in Hong Kong. They actually were some of the first people to believe into Chinese wine. They developed it a lot first in China and then in Hong Kong. And Jefferson is one of those people that is a good, good ambassador of Chinese wine. And more than this, he also has an incredible Rhone Valley portfolio in France. and many more. Yeah, you guys are into Chinese wine. I'm sure you'll have a good discussion with him. 100%.

• Speaker #1

  Thank you very much for this recommendation. Thank you very much for this interview.

• Speaker #0

  Pleasure.

• Speaker #1

  I had an amazing time. I guess if you guys liked it, don't forget to subscribe. Send this interview to people who need to contest restaurants of black sheep. I guess it's the great... conclusion of this you have more than 90 restaurants so you can do one per day for three months uh which is pretty nice uh thanks again for for this moment and i see you soon yes see you soon thank you very much for your time