A Chef Aboard a Barge in Burgundy
Cruising Down the River While Preparing a Delicate Sauce is not Easy
Aug 27, 2009
Cooking gourmet meals, balancing the tastes of superb regional wines with the food, and ensuring that the cheeses bought from local makers reach just the right degree of perfection before being served to the guests with the wines is not difficult for the average chef.
Put that chef in a miniscule kitchen on a barge sailing through Burgundy, however, with a brief to produce perfect salads, meats, fish dishes, and desserts all complemented by the right wines, and see how he does. But Steve Wilson, a young 28 year-old chef from New Zealand is doing just that – and without the help of kitchen porters – on La Belle Époque, a magnificent barge that sails the canals of Burgundy.
Steve Wilson, Chef on La Belle EpoqueSteve trained partly in New Zealand but mostly in the UK, and he spends the summers working for GoBarging.com and the winters in various ski resorts in Scotland and Austria where the challenges he faces in producing food for hungry skiers are met with the same enthusiasm as he meets the challenges in producing meals for the luxury barge market in France.
Holidays with GoBarging.com last six days and most people add on an extra day or two in Paris (the collection point for the trip). Steve spends this time preparing his menus which he often changes as he gets to know the tastes of those travelling on the vessel. Shopping twice a week, he manages to ensure that in the twelve meals he serves to the guests, no two are ever the same.
Food and Drink on La Belle Epoque
Is it a food based holiday, a wine based holiday or a relaxing barging holiday? Actually, it’s all three. Breakfast is served buffet style and at any time to suit, lunch is quite informal, and dinner is slightly more formal, but never starchy. All the meals are helped along by liberal supplies of exquisite regional wines chosen to complement the food to be served. Before the meal, brief “tasting notes” are offered for the wines chosen to accompany the meal, and a short description of the 3 or 4 cheeses on offer, all regional and few of which are available outside of France will also be given before the cheese course.
The Onboard Life
Steve Wilson loves his job, he loves the camaraderie of the life on board, the crew members who look after the 9 – 12 passengers per trip, and most of all, he loves the countryside of France and the chance to brush up his language skills. He’s an outgoing person and meeting the guests from all different parts of the world is one of the best parts of the job he says. From the UK to the USA, Australia to Austria, he’s fed them all and many return again and again for more of Chef Steve’s cooking.
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