Karim Guedouar – Donor and alumni member (2001 cohort)
General Manager – Restaurant Daniel – New York
He wished to participate in the sponsorship campaign “My Seat at the Institut Paul Bocuse” devoted entirely to former students.
We are the ambassador of the savoir faire a la francaise and it all started in Ecully and we must never forget that because it is our essence, our DNA and what defines who we are and who we became.
I feel lucky to have started in Ecully and I am honored to continue to testify about it; that’s to me what my chair represents.
So many reasons as to why I contributed to this chair…
In our industry which Is based on passion and dedication, it is crucial to learn and then to teach your savoir faire;
L’Ecole des arts culinaires et de l’hôtellerie aka IPB today did that for me and it is important for me to feel that I can give back what I learned and this chair is definitely a symbol of that statement;
I try to learn every day and I try to teach every day; it is a team effort and the foundation of what we do;
“Le Savoir Faire à la Francaise” as we call it and this savoir faire is definitely present at the Institut;
We need to make it live and we need to make it grow as much as we can; this is also the symbol of this chair and we can all be proud of what this school brought us and now that we grew in our lives we need to communicate this pride to the younger generation so they can feel it and sense it in order to go even higher than we did in our career;
we are the ambassador of the savoir faire a la francaise and it all started in Ecully and we must never forget that because it is our essence, our DNA and what defines who we are and who we became; we must tell that to the younger generation and inspire them the way we have been inspired when we were at the Institut;
We all have a journey in life but we share a common passion and we have been lucky to cultivate the start of this passion at IPB;
So let’s all together do our duty of ambassador and be part of this culture of inspiration for their future; this is also the symbol of this chair..
I could go on and on about this subject and it would be easier to talk about it but to finalize what I tried to express in these few lines, I will never forget in 2001 when I graduated – promotion 2001.
Terence Conran was our Parrain de promotion and he had a notion of explanation that “we are not born with good taste but we develop it..” which I think was very true and we were actually lucky enough to have studied at L’ecole des arts culinaires et de l’hotellerie because we have been able to develop this taste for what we believed in;
But right after that Mr Paul came to say a word which I will never never forget; he took the mic and with his legendary smile he said :
“ Mes biens chers étudiants, je viens saluer les nouveaux diplomés de l’E.A.C.H qui ont passés 2 ou 3 années au Château du Vivier et je vous en félicite. Une nouvelle aventure s’ouvre a vous et pour ceux qui pensent qu’aujourd’hui tout est fini et tout et acquis, et bien vous n’avez rien compris car c’est aujourd’hui que tout commence…” to this day I never heard so much truth into something I am passionate about.
I feel lucky to have started in Ecully and I am honored to continue to testify about it; that’s to me what my chair represents.
Vive le savoir-faire à la française et vive Mr Paul !!!