It's Saturday morning, lunchtime, at West Vancouver's Chez Michel restaurant.
The napery is crisp and white, glassware and silverware gleams. Host and owner Michel Segur presides, as he has done for 36 years.
Segur learned his trade at home in France, literally. Yes, he graduated from an exacting and prestigious school and perfected his skills in Canadian restaurants, but it all began in the kitchen of his family home.
He was always in the kitchen, preferring to stir pots and chop vegetables at his mother's side to playing sports with his brothers. Since the age of nine, Segur knew there would be cooking in his future.
The first culinary opportunity came with a summer job at a small hotel in the Vosges Mountains. The village of Val Claret is all the way across France from Michel's home village of Dremil-Lafage, just outside Toulouse. As it happened, the local priest and his mother were going to Luxembourg. The village was on their route; they would drive Segur. This they did, following a road accident during which, he recalls, "I was ejected from la voiture, which was destroyed."
The travellers carried on by taxi to the hotel. The next morning, stiff and sore, Segur started working.
That work experience helped Segur get accepted into the Ecole Hotelier des Midi-Pyrenees in Toulouse. At 14, Segur was among the youngest of 40 students chosen from 365 applicants for the three-year program.
"We learned the hospitality industry, from making pastry and cooking to waiting tables to hotel management," he says.
After graduation, Segur followed the advice of the school's chef de cuisine: to explore, experiment and learn from as many chefs in as many restaurants as he could. He arrived in Quebec in October 1969, having just turned 18 and planning to devote a year to developing his skills.
Four years later, still in Canada, Segur moved further west. Arriving just as Vancouver was awakening to the pleasures of fine dining, he worked as a waiter in most of the city's good restaurants, including his own, a short-lived venture in partnership with Michel Balleger. He also decided to make Canada his permanent home, becoming a citizen in 1975.
In 1977, a better opportunity came along for the aspiring restaurateurs.
A new building was to be located in the 1300 block on the north side of Marine Drive in West Vancouver.
For those who may remember, this was the site, for many years, of Stan's Grocery.
The two Michels set about planning their new restaurant. Michel Segur designed the kitchen and Michel Balleger designed the front. They created the menu together. That menu, a model of classic French cuisine, is displayed on a plaque created to mark Chez Michel's 20th anniversary.
Chez Michel opened in February 1979. "We were a success right from the beginning," recalls Segur. "Every seat was occupied from the time we opened until closing."
It seemed 1979 was a good year to dine out in West Vancouver. Chesa and the Ambleside Inn opened that summer and La Belle Sole opened in the fall. The cumulative addition of 250 seats in Ambleside provoked some friendly culinary competition and created a legion of loyal customers.
For Segur, his restaurant provided more than the opportunity to do what he loved. It brought him love, marriage and a family. He and Sylvie Bienvenue, a nurse at Lions Gate Hospital, married in 1985 and raised their two children, Gabrielle and Julien, in West Vancouver.
That year, Philippe, the only other Segur brother to take up a culinary career, arrived in Vancouver. Together the brothers opened Le Bistro Chez Michel, which operated for a dozen years in North Vancouver.
When recent health challenges prevented Michel from giving his full attention to Chez Michel, Julien, Philippe and the restaurant staff rallied round. As spring approaches, Michel is taking up the reins again, a little more each day.
On this Saturday morning, the sun sparkles on the waters of Burrard Inlet and glints off the silver and glassware at Chez Michel.
The menu for the day, as always, is authentically French with a modern flair.
Michel Segur welcomes his guests, greeting most of them by name.
Their tables are waiting.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. 778-279-2275 [email protected]
