EP 19: Pascaline Lepeltier

Transcript

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Welcome to Hospitality On The Rise, the podcast about the people shaping the hospitality industry and their journeys. I'm your host, Alice Cheng, founder and CEO of Culinary Agents, hospitality's go-to hiring platform. And I'm here to give you your dose of virtual mentorship.

Here, we'll be sharing the stories, lessons learned, and advice from hospitality leaders who've carved out their own path to success. After all, this industry is where many get their start and go on to do incredible things.

Whether you're a pro, starting out, or just love the hustle, this podcast highlights what makes hospitality extraordinary, the people.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Thank you. I'm so excited to have Pascaline Lepeltier with us today. Master Sommelier, amongst many other accolades and titles here. Current Beverage Director at Chambers in Tribeca, longtime advocate and supporter of all things wine and education. And Pascaline, thank you so much for taking time to share with us about your career journey here.

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER 

Thanks a lot, it's a real pleasure to be with you.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yes, and I had the pleasure of meeting Pascaline years and years ago at Rouge Tomate in the first location here in Manhattan. And immediately I was just drawn to her professionalism, to her knowledge, and then also support. I don't know if you remember Pascaline, but you were extremely supportive of myself and Culinary Agents. And a thank you. We're 13 years this year,

and folks like yourself and yourself in particular who has helped us get here. 

Enough about me. We want to hear about how you got started, your career journey, because it's very rich and many pages long here in front of me, and some advice that you picked up along the way. So Pascaline, how did it all begin?

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

It began extremely fortunately. So you can hear my very strong accent. I'm born and raised in France, and I was not at all supposed to end up in the hospitality world. I grew up in a wine region, but my parents didn't care about wine at all, and they didn't care about restaurants, and they discovered this world quite late in their career, which I had a lot of different paths I entered before I entered restaurants. 

So I grew up in the Loire Valley. I went to public school. I played tennis a lot when I was a kid. I thought at one point I would go into a kind of more professional tennis career. Got injured. But I think it's very important, and I'm just mentioning sports because more than ever today, this is a big help in my work as working in restaurants. And I feel extremely blessed to have practiced a sport at a high level because I realized how much restaurants is all about taking care of oneself and have a very good physical ability to endure the amount of time we're on our feet and all that. 

So more than ever today I realized how lucky I was to have done this kind of sports because I really realized as I was getting older that taking care of oneself is extremely important. So that was when I was very young. 

Then going to school I discovered philosophy, which is not something that is taught everywhere in the world, but in France it's mandatory to take a year of philosophy and I loved it. I loved it so much that I decided to become a philosophy teacher and went for university study where I got a master in philosophy, and I was on my way to go and teach. My mom is a teacher, and I always really appreciate how much education is important and how teaching is important. So I saw myself always as a teacher.

But I was super young. I was 21, and I got extremely scared to become a teacher. Especially teaching philosophy because it was talking about people, to people that would be 16 or 18 years old. So I realized I didn't have the mental strength, I didn't have the life experience to teach at that age. And so I decided to take a break, a year break. And my philosophy teacher loved wine. And he said, “Why don't you try to go and work a little bit?” Because until that time, I didn't really work. I studied. I was at school and all that. He said, “Do something with your hand. You need to be handling life.”

And so I took a year off and ended up working in a wine shop. And I did a lot of small jobs, a bunch, a lot of other small jobs just to try to work like a florist. I worked in markets. I did a lot of things. And entering this wine shop was a revelation. I was like, wow, what's that around me? And at the same time to make money, I started to work in a catering company. And I was like, wow, what's that universe?

And that was the end. So I discovered the world of restaurant and wine. I really enjoyed it. I told my parents I was not going back to university for philosophy, but I would love to go in university or school for hospitality. They said, OK.. I think they were very relieved for me not to be a philosophy teacher.

And so what happened next, I was 22, I already had all these diplomas, and most of the vocational schools didn't accept my application. I was rejected because they thought I had too many diplomas and I would be stupid to go in restaurants. You have to think that was in 2003, 2004, and at that time going to work in restaurants and hospitality school was really still seen as a dead end. Like it really meant that you couldn't do anything else with your life. It was really a very, very bad career choice. And all these directors were telling me, “You're stupid. You need to go back to university. You need to have a real job.” 

So I think I was just glad to be 22 and super, super, super determined. And so I said, “No, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to do it.” And so I had to go back to university because university could take me, very ironically, and I did an MBA and a DOSS, which is kind of an equivalent of an MBA, in hospitality management. So I got my diploma and during that time I had to do a mandatory internship of nine months where I was doing, you know, my paper to have my MBA. And I ended up in a very famous catering company in Paris. 

Already at that time, I was back in university in my hometown. I was back in the Loire Valley and I was already spending all my weekends in visiting wineries. I took every wine class I could. So obviously, the wine bug was there.

And I applied to do my nine-month internship to be the assistant of the sommelier in this very important catering company. And they said no, they were not taking any girls. It was not for a woman job. So I still ended up in this catering company. I was doing planification for like 300 different maitre d and all the events all around Paris. And some of them became friends and they really saw I love wine very, very much.

And at the very end of my training, my internship, one of them brought me a 1937 Château d'Yquem. Château d'Yquem is a sweet wine from France. It's one of the most famous wines in the world. 1937 is an iconic, exceptional, exceptional vintage. And they were tasting it for the wedding of the daughter of Bernard Arnault from LVMH. They were organizing the wedding, and there was to taste the wine for the wedding, for the dessert. That tasting just changed my life. That day I said, “No way. I'm becoming a sommelier. That's wine, that's not catering, that's not restaurant, that's wine.” 

And that night, went back to my hometown Angers, I was 24 and nine months, and I signed up for a vocational school to become a sommelier. And I could get in because it was until 25, and I could kind of balance out my internship and get all the credentials because it's very practical and boom, here I was. So was one year to become a sommelier, one week at school with 16, 17 years old, and three weeks in a restaurant and same thing here, I extremely struggled to find an internship. People didn't want me, I had no experience, I had all these diplomas. I didn't know shit about food, never worked in restaurants. And it took me a long time to find an internship, and I found one in a two-Michelin star and then it’s history. So that's short my pathway to where I am today.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Wow. Wow. I didn't even want to interject any color commentary to that. Thank you. What great advice, “Go do something with your hands.” And that just shows sometimes when you take a step back and you try something different, you may unlock a whole other side of passion that you were not aware existed. So thank you to your professor with that advice, because what you've done since then, trailblazer, the first woman ever to obtain the MOF (Meilleur Ouvrier de France) in Sommellerie. Yeah, and, many other pioneering moves that you've made since then. So now you're here, you're a somm. What brought you to the next stage in your career?

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

So I stayed for a year and a half in this Michelin-starred restaurant. It was an exceptional experience with one of the greatest wine list in France. And my chef was extremely famous to be extremely hard and tough, which was true.

After a year and half I realized I wanted to go and travel and work abroad. I was 26-ish, and I knew I wanted an international career. And same thing, it got very hard to find something. But by chance my resume ended up on a desk of someone that was starting to develop this incredible concept of a restaurant that was Rouge Tomate. So there was an office in Paris. And they really enjoyed for what–maybe it was because they were from Belgium and not from France–they really liked the fact that I had a kind of education, one in university study and the other one more practical in restaurant. And they were looking for somebody to take over the beverage program and to develop different things. The whole concept was about health through food, so they wanted somebody that could work with scientists and nutritionists to develop how to eat and drink better and how to select, how to propose, how to offer. 

So you had to do a lot of research and work with university people and then to make it applicable to restaurant. And so, I thought I could do the job. So I got hired at Rouge Tomate in 2007. There was an office in Paris. I worked for a year to develop all the charter, all the programs to do the bev, and we were opening this restaurant in New York.

They had restaurant in Brussels, so I worked a little bit in Brussels for them, and then I prepared the New York opening which happened in ‘08, at the end of 2008–and for some of you, may not know because probably some of your listeners may not have been born at that time, but it was a very important economical crisis at the end of ‘08, and we opened a very massive restaurant that you know, we went to at the end of the crisis. So extremely difficult beginning of opening, and six months in we had to let a lot of people go because business was really really difficult, and so they asked me to come to the US for six months to kind of rethink the concept and make it work with a team, and I stayed. 

So I worked 10 years for this group and it was an extraordinary moment of my career because it was all about creating a real sustainable environment at every level, from sourcing to design to what is in a plate to how we treat people in a restaurant and how to make it possible. And that was an extraordinary experience for me. So I worked ten years for them in New York, and then I stayed.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

And you stayed and you went on to open up your own projects and teach and mentor a lot of other folks. So tell me about branching out and starting your own project.

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

So in fact, I didn't really start in my own project. I was lucky and after Rouge Tomate, I wanted to continue into wine. And so I was lucky to get invited to collaborate in a place called Racines that was created in here in New York since 2014. And it was created by two really talented people with bank backgrounds from France and the US. And I joined as originally like a sommelier and I became a managing partner of that place called Racines, and I discovered a bit more in depth what does it mean to be part and running a business. 

Racines was extremely really a life and business education on like a crash course if you want. So it's a tiny restaurant of 55 seats. At that time it was 75 on Chamber Street. And so we operated it and then COVID happened. And I think I'm still traumatized about operating a business during COVID.

So we managed to keep Racines alive until 2021 and then my chef decided to move on to be with his family. One of the partners decided to leave, and so we had to take a business decision/ And the business decision was to transform this restaurant in a new restaurant with the same business partner, and that became Chambers that we opened in June 2022. So I learned how to operate, manage, close, reopen… 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Another degree.

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

Another degree in New York City during COVID. And so today, so I'm not a managing partner anymore in this restaurant, not that I don't want. But what you learn when you arrive in America, there is two things to have, and that's an advice for everybody wanting to do business here, is you need to have a very good accountant, and you need to have a very good lawyer. There is a lot of laws, especially when you start to work with alcohol. And one of them is that in New York state you have a complicated three-tier system between the production, the distribution and the retail of the alcohol. And you can't be involved with a partner in one of the tier and have financial interest in one of the other one. And I'm making wine, I have a small wine project in the Finger Lakes, I'm going to be involved in wine projects in the Loire Valley, and so you can't do that and be a managing partner. So we had to rethink the structure of the restaurant so I could continue to have my different businesses. So yes, you need a good lawyer when you start your business in New York.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, well, well, tell me a little bit about your other projects and your other businesses. How did they come about?

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

I really think it's extremely important to keep yourself curious, and I'm very skeptical about hyper-expertise, and I think it's very important to touch on a lot of different things when you're in a field.

The different project came almost out of necessity because I was interested or I needed something and I couldn't find it. And I think at one point when you can't find what you need, you have to do it yourself, kind of. 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah.

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

And this is what happened. So I was looking for wine, specifically for Rouge Tomate. I was looking for an organic wine made in New York State in 2016 and I couldn't find it. So I partnered with a friend of mine in the Finger Lakes, and we decided to launch a wine called chëpìka that became a very important project for me, which is all about celebrating the heritage, be it historical and botanical of the lakes. We are working with 100-years-old hybrids, and we are making this sparkling wine organically certified. And that project that became just like a wine for my restaurant became something a little bit bigger because this is a side project for both of us, makes money and all, but is also a way for us to celebrate the, once again, the history of the lake. 

So that projects allow us to sponsor some association trying to preserve the heritage of the Native American of the area or the question of laborers in the Finger Lakes. So we try to use this project to bring awareness about what does that really mean to grow grapes in New York, what are the consequences in some of the farming, and where is all these grapes are from and using the money then to support projects we like. So chëpìka is doing very well. We are extremely happy with that. We had some great success on the wine.

And the other project, I started to teach a lot and I realized that as I was teaching I wasn't very happy with the way things were taught, and I think this is because I was teaching a lot in Europe before and I wanted to become a teacher. And so I realized that we were missing some tools, and I decided to write a book. So I discovered the world of editing and publishing and writing, which is also all another beast. And so I wrote a book, and that just got published in English after being published in France. I write quite a lot in fact. I have now a monthly column in a magazine in France since a few years, and so I'm discovering also all the work of journalism and being an author and the implication with that. 

And then I have a little business on the side that I created a little LLC to do some consulting on project that I'm interested by where I keep on learning.

And so for people, it looks like there is a lot of things, a lot of direction. But in fact, the way I see it is about how each project is feeding the other. How each project is allowing to create a network, develop certain ideas, put perspective, create opportunities for each business for the other one. And this is how I see it, a bit like a galaxy of businesses.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, and kind of a culmination of your personal experience and passions, right? You've taken the skills and the natural abilities you have, connected with new discovered passions and what you're currently doing, and have built this little galaxy for yourself. I think that's wonderful. I'm learning so much. Even though I've known you for many years, I'm learning so much. I'm fascinated by this. 

And I love what you said about you saw a need for something, and you created it because it didn't exist. And I think that sometimes is when the most brilliant businesses and ideas and most meaningful and impactful ones come to fruition. 

For those of us who are curious, where can we find your wine?

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

It's available mostly in the North East America, you can find it in New York, some good wine shops. We are going to release a new vintage in like three weeks I think. And we also have the wine a little bit in North Carolina, Georgia, Colorado. We have it in Canada. And we have my partner Nathan Kendall has a little tasting room in the Finger Lakes. So you can also see it and taste it in the Finger Lakes. It's a small volume project, but yes, well distributed all around the state and you can order it online from the website of the winery.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Perfect. Director-to-consumer, I like that. Okay. 

So, I would ask you what's next, but it sounds like you have a lot of projects all fitting together. What do you predict is the next thing? What's the next gap or need that you see that you want to fulfill?

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER 

I think what I'm working on right now is when I see the need, it's more an evolution of the industry. I think there is still a lot of prejudices against hospitality industry as not being the most healthy, very demanding, extremely hard on oneself. And we can see that with crisis of vocation. And you know that. It's thanks to your website. And we're using it quite a lot to find the right people to work with us and to stay and to do a career in restaurant.

I really believe restaurants can be extremely fulfilling, and we need to continue to give the opportunity of people to be fulfilled and have a great life with it and a career and making really good income, which as we know is always problematic and still.

But I see myself working more, developing a new way of seeing the wine and the consumption of alcohol, which is also kind of a dirty secret in our business or something that we don't talk about, about the health issue. And today has been put on the forefront with so many articles talking about alcohol consumption and alcohol is really bad and it's going to be like the health issues with that. And we see where it goes right now with a lot of temperance movement. 

I would like to try to bring my stone about rethinking how to taste wine and in general how to educate the taste to bring it as a way of mindfulness. So how to combine and to realize how much of experts of taste we are, that we are, by being this taste expert, knowing how to taste and how to talk about it and to share it, there is an incredible amount of power, including political power in it. And how can we also showcase that there is ways to have even more mindfulness about oneself by doing so. 

So I'm working on a book, I'm working on a new methodology on how to learn and how to taste wine. New practices that could help people to feel better and to be better in their body when they work in restaurants. And I'm working on that right now with a bunch of different people, from physical coach to yoga teacher to neuroscientist to neurologist to nutritionist and try to bring that to life. So this is I'm working on right now, in that need of telling people that yes, they can feel better, they can be better, they can be happier if they understand a bit more how tastes work and share it in restaurants.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

I love it. I agree with you, and what we've seen as an overall trend is not only this focus on professionalism and hospitality as a career, but also overall health, right? Everything, like you said in the beginning, from a physical, you know, from taking care of yourself so that you can physically continue to take care of others and work the job and stand your feet for those hours and lift those wine cases, etc. that needs to be done, all the way to mental and how all the pieces fit together and how that can be sustainable. Right. 

So sounds very exciting. Look forward to it. Well, you know, I think one of the things also that I notice is a common trend for you, going back to your career path is that you've been the first woman to receive certain recognitions, in France, in multiple areas. Is that, I want to say, is that intentional? But obviously, that's kind of a silly question. You know, I think highlighting, you said earlier, about determination and clearly you were determined. It seems that you've been very intentional and thoughtful in all the different steps that you've taken to build out your career here. Any advice for folks who might be at earlier stages and trying to start out, doesn't matter gender, what they should be thinking about, how they can navigate some of the things that are working against them.

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

That's a great question. There is no one easy answer. Determination for sure, and surround yourself with role model of people that you can really rely on and then will have your back in different ways is extremely important, especially when you have moments of doubt or moments of when you are down, and so that build up of a close circle that can continue to support you and push you.

Don't take no for an answer. Continue to push, and there is one person that will say no in a second and a third, there will be one person that will say yes. There is so many prejudices as we know, in so many ways, at so many levels, and sometimes you understand that if you want to go to A, the straight line may not be the best path. You may have to navigate and take a little bit more time. You are talking about some of the things I won. It was in France, and it was in 2018 and 19. I stayed in Macar in 2007. It took me 11, 12 years to get it. I started to try to this kind of title a year in, and I understood they were not ready. It was like they were not ready. I was also, you know, a woman, young, gay, in France, it was just like forget about it. A

nd I went to the US. It's why I came to New York also and I stayed to New York is because I found an environment that could be way more fulfilling and where I could get my chance even though I had to work 10 times more at the beginning because I didn't know stuff and it was an all different culture and mentality, and it was extremely hard to be here. I was by myself, no family, I met my wife very quickly on, and she was a big help. But I took a side track and I went to the city and I stayed to the city because I knew this is a place that I could try to be myself a little bit more.

And I went back to France and I failed again and went back to France and I failed again and they told me at one point, you know, “Don't even try again because you are too different from us.” So I could, okay. And so I stayed back in the US and then I went back in ‘18, and I was “man, there is no way you are not gonna see I'm the best.” And so… and I won, and then that changed a lot, changed a lot today.

And so it's a combination of trusting yourself, surrounding, be patient. The hardest part is the anger and the frustration, also because it's a build up that can really become an inner stop. And I deeply believe anger and frustration are necessary moments, but… That's the philosophy in me, but there is a great philosophy called Spinoza, you say, sad passion, it's not going to take you anywhere. You need to have a happy passion.

And so I understood that frustration and anger will just build up and will not allow me to be myself because I will be always in a grudge. And so how can I switch a little bit and to find moments with joy? Because only joy will be able to push me up and to go to do crazy things that could move me forward. So this mix of community, being with these people that are honest with you and are able to tell you yes, no, be very realist about your own ability, understand what you can change and can't change.

Work on the discipline to change. Take every little step. Every micro things make you move forward, and I really believe in that. Like that little discipline of a little thing every day. Dream big and go with people that will be around you and cheer for you because you need that joy. Because that is the only way to overcome the hardest prejudices. Be smart, understand the legislation, understand the system is also key, because you may not be able to change a system from the outside, you can maybe break in and then change it. So understand what you can and can't change, where you can be free and where you can't. And that will allow you to blossom, I think.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

I love it. I love it. They weren't listening, so you made them listen. Well, Pascaline, amazing. That is going to take us straight into quick-fire. 

All right. What advice would you tell your younger self?

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

Believe in yourself a little bit more.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

What's your advice for someone struggling in the industry?

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

I would say take a break and take a little bit of care of oneself first. Once again, I think we go back to the physical part of it and try to get some clear head before going back. And probably if you're struggling, you are not in the right place to work.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

What's your advice for hospitality leaders?

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

Oh my God. Let's get together more and let's change things at the political level. We have such a power. We have access to so many people that are today dictating the way this country is eating and drinking. This get-together happened during COVID and allowed to make some change, some real change. So I would say we need, so that's maybe also the French in me, but there is a lot of union in France. It's a different union ways than what you have in America. But collaboration on the top of the leaders to change how restaurants and food is seen in this country and workers in restaurants.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Right. With that, Pascaline, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're heading to travels and lots of other projects, but your advice and your sharing some of your experience is so valuable to both aspiring and folks who are starting out in the industry. So thank you on the behalf of all of them. And thank you for sharing your time and your ongoing support of myself and the team.

 

GUEST: PASCALINE LEPELTIER

No, thanks for all you do. You know, I think it's great. Bravo, 13 years and you are stronger than ever, and you are really, really a big force, and it's really great the way you've been allowing so many of us to find the talents and to continue to work in this industry. So bravo. Thanks for all the work.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Thank you. Thank you.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Remember, success looks different for everyone in hospitality. No two paths are the same. If you have a leader or a topic you want to hear about, email [email protected].

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