Philippe Olivier makes a big deal of it
Awarded the Rabelais Trophy for Best Cheesemaker in France in 1996, Philippe Olivier, from Boulogne-sur-Mer, passes on his passion for dairy cheese not only throughout France, but also far beyond our borders, across the Channel and across the Channel. His cheeses grace the finest Michelin-starred tables. All the way to the Land of the Rising Sun!
"There's no such thing as a good hunting meal without a cheese platter." For the opening of hunting season in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, a privileged period synonymous with a return to nature, conviviality and good food, the Boulogne-sur-Mer master cheesemaker refines his list according to the terroir and the game hunted. "But what all the platters will have in common is that they will combine cheeses with character, "man's" cheeses, if hunting is such a masculine pastime. I can imagine a platter with an vieux-lille, a maroilles, a camembert du Cotentin or a brie de Melun coulant, a mimolette extra-vieille, a dry chèvre, a munster, a poiret de Meuse, a tomme de Savoie céronnée, accompanied by full-bodied red wines." For the new season, the cheese-maker, who is delighted to see his 24-year-old son Romain join the family business to assist him, has some real museum pieces to offer his loyal customers: "Eight wheels of Beaufort, ten of Estivaz and eight Gruyère cheeses from the canton of Gruyère, even from the summer of 2004, which I've just bought for you.
Au bon beurre
Since September 15, lovers of good butter have also been able to find on the shelves of Philippe Olivier and Romain Olivier, the butter that the affineur has just perfected with a mixer from Pas-de-Calais, presented in three versions: sweet butter, semi-salted butter and pot butter ("or sailor's butter, like the one my father Marcel used to mix"); it is salted with Camargue salt and molded the old-fashioned way in parchment paper. "As in the beginning, it cries tears of salt water."
Originally from Normandy, Philippe Olivier, France's youngest qualified master cheesemaker, settled on the Côte d'Opale 30 years ago. The grandson of cheese merchants, he reinforced the knowledge he had acquired on the job with professional courses and five years of apprenticeship. On rue Thiers, right in the heart of Boulogne, he has set up ripening cellars beneath his store: the cheese matures in the old-fashioned way on straw laid in beechwood racks; the wood for these racks is that of trees cut at the rising moon, so that the sap continues to circulate in the wood ... "it takes six weeks for the pâte fleurie to become tender-hearted, two of which are spent in this cellar, where lucullus, camemberts and bries wait to be tasted, creamy to the point of perfection, on the straw-covered shelves," says our raw-milk cheesemonger.
Fourteen at the table...
The cheese-maker, criss-crossing France, spots the little guy: a craftsman for whom heritage is still a safe bet, from whom he will buy his supplies. He sometimes helps the producer to revive a local cheese that has fallen into oblivion. He also prepares and presents his products with art and love. Philippe Olivier has also become a successful businessman, managing a company with 14 employees in Boulogne alone. Awarded the Mercure d'Or in 1982, he is a member of a number of confraternities, and supplies cheeses to both Marc Meurin in Béthune and l'Assiette Champenoise in Tinqueux (Marne). Two double-starred restaurants ...
From Dubai to Jakarta.
Benelux, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Singapore and Japan. For Philippe Olivier, Dubai is an emerging market, while he is already prospecting Bangkok, Bali and Jakarta for tomorrow's deliveries.
In fact, Philippe Olivier's SA now generates 45% of its sales from exports. 35% of business comes from the boutiques (the Boulogne boutique accounts for only 10%, no more!), the 15-20% from catering and the remainder from events (buffets, tasting conferences, wine and cheese fairs, etc.).
Finally, as an ambassador for French cheese, the artisan regularly takes up the pen or the microphone to extol the virtues of the 200 or so cheese families found in France. In 1985, he co-authored a guide to French cheeses, of which over 25,000 copies were sold in Great Britain and the USA, and has now written a reference work on the cheeses of our region. His story is worth a cheese...
Produced by Gazette Nord-pas-de-Calais
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