Christophe Rovan, Owner of Café de la Poste, O'Steak, and O’Pasta, Joins the Beijinger’s Dining Hall of Fame

For the second year running, the Beijinger's 2016 Reader Restaurant Awards Ceremony invited members of Beijing’s F&B industry to recognize their peers by electing new members to the Beijing Dining Hall of Fame.

Four individuals were elected to the Hall this year, including Christophe Rovan the owner of Café de la Poste, O'Steak, and the newly opened O’Pasta. Here we managed to snag a word with Christophe what makes him tick.

RELATED: Photos from the Beijinger 2016 Reader Restaurant Awards Ceremony

TBJ: Could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Rovan: I am Christophe Rovan. I am a 57-year-old restaurant owner in Beijing. I studied history at the Sorbonne, where I specialized in a short period of Ancient Greek history in the 5th Century BC, between the second Greco-Persian war and the Peloponnesian War. It was a fascinating period during which Greek cities reached the height of their cultural and political power. After that, I was a cartoonist/designer, photographer, journalist, ghostwriter, advertising copywriter and editor, but all of that was much less fun.

What made you decide to come to Beijing?
I had an advertising agency in Paris which I sold in order to follow my Chinese wife who wanted to settle in Beijing. We have divorced since then, but have remained on excellent terms.

I came to Beijing in the Spring of 2006 without the faintest clue of what I would do there. I was thinking of selling wine, but the wine market was already very mature and there were plenty of big fish swimming around in that pond. So I turned to the restaurant business. I enjoy eating but knew nothing at all about cooking and the restaurant trade. I walked into a French restaurant and told the chef, "Take me on as a kitchen hand for a couple of months. I will scour your saucepans and peel your potatoes. You won’t need to pay me. Just let me watch everything you do, from dawn till dusk." After two months I had learned next to nothing, but I had understood that the restaurant business is a real trade. It is tough, demanding and requires faultless organization and a strong sense of public relations. In a nutshell, I had understood that I would never become a restaurateur on my own. And as fate is often a matter of serendipity, it was at that point that I came across the team who were about to launch the Café de la Poste. They were all crazy and highly professional and I joined them. That’s how the adventure began.

When your first restaurant opened in 2006, what was the story behind it?
Café de la Poste is a small French bistro close to the Lama Temple. When we opened in 2006, we were virtually the only foreigners in the district. We would have  parties and fancy dress evenings every night. Customers would sing and dance on the tables. It was really great! There were a lot of students, but there were also executives, teachers, civil servants. People loved that little corner of France tucked away in the Hutongs. And luckily for us, they still love it.

What’s the trick of getting on well with customers?
Smile! Talk a lot and pour them some Calvados "on the house" …

Café de la Poste also won the the Beijinger's 2016 Reader Restaurant Awards' Best Wine List, are you a wine lover yourself? What kinds of wine do you like the best?
Wine is my greatest passion. I love to smell and taste it, of course, but I also like talking about and around wine, describing it. Loving wine is loving to share, first and foremost!

I don’t have any absolute preferences, it all depends on the mood of the moment. Three years ago, I was in love with the wines of Alsace. Nowadays, it is the Loire valley wines that I find thrilling. In particular the Sancerres, white or red. I love their cheerfulness, their fruity brightness, their vigor. But if I had to choose to take a single bottle with me to a desert island, I would take a Côte du Rhône: a Côte Rôtie 1999 from Cluzel Roch, for instance. No words can describe the depth and delicacy of that nectar.

What’s your favorite food in Beijing?
Hot pot, without a doubt. When I go home to the Cantal, in Central France, I start missing the Beijing hot pot within a week there …

What food do you miss from hometown?
I miss Truffade! It is a speciality from my hometown, or village. Basically, it involves a lot of garlic, a lot of potatoes and a lot of cheese. It is totally unhealthy and utterly delicious!

What are your plans for the future?
To develop O’Steak and O’Pasta in Beijing and elsewhere, open new restaurants in different locations, continue to improve the quality of our dishes and of our service, love my wife Tseegii and my three children Jules, Anaïs, and Nikita even more ... These are my goals for 2016. And if there’s any left over for 2017 and 2018, I’ll willingly take that too ...!

What’s your favorite place to grab a drink?
The streets of Beijing: with a good, well-chilled Beijing beer in hand, whilst nibbling on some skewers. That’s my favorite bar! 

More stories by this author here.

Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com
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Photos courtesy of Christophe Rovan