Sebastien Lambert is the Technical Director of the Cordon Bleu Institute in Wellington and is responsible for the instruction of all the students, ensuring their training meets the highest professional standards demanded by the institute.
The young French lad who left the small French town of Ernée nearly thirty years to pursue his dream of being a pastry chef is now happily ensconced in New Zealand with no real thoughts of returning to his birth country.
He rejoices in the responsibility, and he still loves to get into the kitchen to show the students how it is done.
Sugar Work is his favourite, over both chocolate and pastry, not that he shrinks from either, but “sugar is more versatile, and if it breaks you can start again. Chocolate and pastry are less forgiving.”
Ernée, population under six thousand, is southwest of Normandy and east of Brittany, famous only for its world class motocross track.
“There was nothing there. I grew up on a dairy farm with my parents. I left when I finished college and started an apprenticeship at the nearby town of Laval” – population 55 000.
“In the cake shop I learned attention to detail. Everything was important. At 17½ I left for Paris.”
The decision to go for pastry came early. “My mother would make floating islands dessert* when we had guests and that stayed with me.
*Floating Island Dessert is a fluffy poached meringue floating over vanilla custard with a smooth cream made with milk, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla and is served chilled.
Mastering patisserie didn’t come easily. “ I found it hard to make croissants but I got there. Anything to do with using my hands I enjoy.
“I am literally a hands on cook, making bread, sugar work, also chocolate. Sugar is more playful. You break something you start again.”
“I was in Paris from age 17 to 21. I didn’t sleep much, we got up at 4am and worked hard and then had the afternoons off. I was part of a much bigger team: twelve in Paris compared to just five in Laval. We did brioche, tarts, sweet breads and of course, Tarte Tropézienne.”
Getting a job at the prestigious Butler’s Wharf Chop House in London was a big step forward.
“I was in charge of the pastry while the chef was on maternity leave. I upset her because on her return she said there was too much French influence. She restored the classical English and I moved on.
“There I saw bread and butter pudding for the first time. And I was amazed at this thing called spotted dick served with custard sauce. I would never do that, but I love Eton Mess. At home I do that or an apple tart.”
Sebastien avows that he is not the kind of French chef who automatically looks down on English cooking but when at home in New Zealand with his wife who is a Gujarat, the foods cooked and eaten are Italian, French and Indian.
Military service saw him spend six months in New Caledonia, his first excursion to the South Pacific.
Then came jobs in Ireland, in Dublin at the Shelbourne in Dublin looking after high tea, plated desserts in the restaurant and the bistro.
A working holiday to New Zealand and Australia has him at the now defunct Essence restaurant in Auckland and at the Quay in Sydney.
In 2006 Sebastien is back in New Zealand running a bakery on the Kapiti Coast – seemingly a big career change.
“I had a friend whom I had met in Auckland and then again in Dublin who was setting up a café and bakery on the Kapiti Coast and she asked me to help her.
“It was a big jump, but I am not just about my work, I am also into quality of life. The place was called Ambrosia (now closed) and we were doing quality work there.”
Moving to New Zealand and then into teaching were both life changing decisions.
“ Moving to teaching was a most interesting part of my journey. You can research, plan and practise things that ae in you, but in teaching your job is to pass knowledge on and get people to be as good as or preferably better than you.
As Technical Director Sebastien looks after the whole team of teaching staff; rosters, staff selection, teaching, curriculum; a Boulangerie programme is about to be added to the curriculum.
So, is pastry still the love of his life?
“Yes I love it. I create things from time to time just for the sheer pleasure of doing so. I make sour dough at the weekends because I like it.”
At 46 Sébastien still has a long career ahead of him, but he’s reluctant to say what he might do next.
“So perhaps a pastry shop one day. Teaching is very satisfying. At the Cordon Bleu we do demonstrations and practicals. Cooking is theatre. We teach that.”
Once France was home, but “I left France when I was 21. I am now 46. New Zealand is home for me now.”
