Kicking away mundane jobs and cooking up a new life

Chef Laurent Dallet and patissiere Lee Hyun-hee pose after an interview at Monsant de Aewol in Jeju. / Korea Times photo by Yun Suh-young

Engineer, bank clerk become chef, patissiere

By Yun Suh-young

JEJU _ Living a life without passion is equivalent to living a life like the walking dead.

For some, keeping a job that they're not passionate about is no problem as long as it's stable and steady. For others, it's a pain that needs to be endured. While those who find it suitable to live a mundane life keep it as it is, those who don't find it enough follow their passion and take a bold turn.

Laurent Dallet and Lee Hyun-hee are of the latter.

"I had a comfortable job. The pay was good, conditions were good too. But there was not a lot of satisfaction," said Dallet, an engineer-turned-chef who cooks for the French Embassy in Seoul and simultaneously runs his own restaurant Le Chef Bleu next to it in Chungjeongno.

Dallet was an engineer who worked for French telecom company Bouygues for 10 years and was with Renault Europa before that. After working 15 years in this profession, he decided he’d had enough.

"During the last few years of my job, I was working at the QS (quality of service) department and I had to deal with all the crises. I was on duty 24/7 and I couldn't control anything but had to solve problems. It was very frustrating. When the service was back, nobody would say thank you. People don't really thank an engineer when you repair a computer," he said during an interview with The Korea Times on Jeju Island, in May, where he attended the Jeju Food and Wine Festival.

He decided to take a one year sabbatical from work and visit New York, a place he had always wanted to go to.

"Three years before taking the vacation, I had watched a program called Ecole de Chef which was about the International Culinary Center (French Culinary Institute at the time) in New York. I had this in my mind but I didn't think of it at that time. Three years later when I wanted to have a break, I said, 'Why not that school?'" said Dallet.

"I liked to cook anyway. Whenever we had parties, I was in charge and I really enjoyed that. But everybody thought I was crazy -- why would a Frenchman learn French cuisine in New York?"

Temporarily setting aside his dream of opening a small auberge in his country, Dallet and his wife Lee Mi-ryung audaciously got on board for an unexpected journey.

After nine months of culinary school, he was luckily hired by the Consulate General of France in New York where he worked until 2012, when he moved to Seoul with his wife.

"When I changed my profession, I was 39 years old," he said.

"The reason why I switched to cooking was when you cook, you can control what’s happening. If something happens, you have a way of dealing with it. I could control everything around my kitchen. And when I deliver dishes and meals, most of the time, people are satisfied."

The satisfaction factor was also the reason why patissiere Lee Hyun-hee quit her routine job to take on risk.

"Ten years ago when I was 28, I worked for the data processing team at a bank. It was a team that people were jealous of but I didn't feel rewarded. It didn't feel like my compensation met up to my achievements. We didn't even have the opportunity for promotion. Also, I was a contract worker while my friends who had similar grades came in as regular employees. It felt unfair," said Lee, owner patissiere of Dessertree, now a popular dessert cafe in the posh district of Cheongdam-dong, Seoul, which serves French desserts in courses.

"The job itself was enjoyable and it fit me well, but it wasn't satisfying or challenging. I could imagine a stable future but it wasn't right. I wanted to find something better before I got older," she said.

"After three years at the bank, I dreamed of opening my own cafe. I wanted to be a CEO baking my own cakes. I was also interested in cooking. So initially I thought of a brunch cafe. To do that I would need some professional training, which was why I decided to go to culinary school."

Lee attended Le Cordon Bleu in Paris to learn the art of making pastry properly from the country that was home to haute cuisine. Because she had a concrete dream, she was determined and focused, and didn't waste time.

"When I quit my job, after four years, I was 28. I was not ready at all when I went to Paris. I didn't speak the language. I took intensive French classes for six months to be in the school program," she said.

"After seven months of school, I started work immediately. I couldn't delay because the longer it took to learn, I would need more money. So I applied to only places I thought would accept me and I got accepted buy all of them, including Joel Robuchon."

Lee decided to work at a now-defunct Michelin two-star restaurant called Le Divellec.

"I wanted to learn restaurant management and operations. So I did everything from placing orders to sales. I gained a lot of confidence from that experience. I also learned the basics of dessert because it was a really classic restaurant," she said.

Then she worked at Le Pershing Hall, a hotel on the Champs-Elysees, before returning to Seoul in 2011. When she returned, she opened her own dessert cafe which was revolutionary because it was the first cafe in the city to serve desserts as if they were French full course meals.

"When I worked at the hotels in Paris, there was always a sequence to the dishes, even for desserts. When I came back to Korea, I was appalled by the dried up desserts displayed in the showcases. I hated it. I wanted to serve fresh desserts that were made on the spot," said Lee.

"So I hit off with the desserts when the order came in. I knew it would work with Korean women and indeed it did."