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An Irish Chef in France

Euro-Toques chef Martin Dwyer, is much missed in Ireland since he and his wife Sile sold their eponymous restaurant in Waterford and moved to France. They now live in the Languedoc, where they take guests - and feed them very well.

How to move to France - this being the time for resolutions and fresh starts, Martin shares some practical advice with the many who want to live this particular dream...

I do get a lot of people confessing that they want to move here and asking what should they do...

Have a trial marriage first, move across for a few months - not necessarily in the summer - and preferably in the area where you hope to live and rent a property to test the water for a while.

Have a good look around your town/village while you are there and study the local property market. Remember there is sometimes a reason why a particular place is cheaper than anywhere else.

Your French is essential so your command of the language is the most important skill. While you are still at home go to as many classes as you can. I have never had great success with language tapes or discs but if you are self-disciplined it could work for you. Alliance Francaise in Ireland is excellent as their classes concentrate on conversation.

If you know any French natives you might manage to have French nights out with them. Don’t stop learning French once you get out to France, the notion that we absorb any language by osmosis is not related to fact.

Fix up your health insurance, preferably with someone who knows something about the system in both countries. If you let your Home Health Insurance lapse it is very difficult to get back on board and the French Carte Vitale needs a fair amount of skill to get listed.

Be prepared to spend a time fixing up your car once you are in France. You are going to have to register the car in France, get French car insurance and ultimately to transfer your licence to France to achieve perfect legality. France’s adoration of red tape can make these processes tedious.

If you buy a house in need of repair select your builder with great care. A good builder is worth his weight in gold and, as they don’t use surveyors to check out buildings, he can be very useful to ensure that your purchase is not on the point of collapse. Make sure he is properly registered with the Local Marie and for vat etc. There are a lot of stories about foreigners being done by cowboys in France too.

It would seem an obvious point but often ignored by people moving to France from colder countries. Make sure that your house has some good outside space, a terrace, balcony or small garden facing south. In the older towns and villages this was not considered so important by the native French.

Be extremely careful before you invest in an isolated, if romantic, farmhouse. Security considerations are obvious and neighbours are extremely good security (and a fantastic source of friendships).

On this subject do talk to your neighbours, make a point of saying “Bonjour” each time you see them (even if it takes them a while to respond.) Politeness on this level is very important in France but they are not sure that outsiders feel the same.

Don’t spurn the other blow-ins. Consider yourself lucky to be able to make new friends whatever their background.

Do make yourself known; introduce yourself in the Marie and in the Bakery and the Butcher. (It is no harm either to explain clearly that you come from Ireland.)

Try and join local societies, choirs, walking groups, gourmet clubs whatever. The local Marie will have a list.

Use the social media well to keep in touch with your own established friends and relations. Face-book, Twitter, Skype, Face-Time, Instagram are vital links for people outside their own home surroundings.

France can be an amazing place to live with a climate, culture, architecture, food and joie de vivre which are all life enhancing. We love it out here, true there are things and people we miss from Ireland but the balance is still very much in France’s favour.

I would hate if any of the above put you off from enjoying our experience but, hopefully it may persuade some contemplating the move, to prepare themselves and so be more likely to stay.

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Martin Dwyer started cooking professionally over 40 years ago in the legendary “Snaffles Restaurant” in Dublin. After a time in a Relais Chateau in Anjou and in “The Wife of Bath” in Kent he opened his own much acclaimed restaurant, “Dwyers”, in Waterford in 1989. In 2004 he sold this and moved south to France where he and his wife Síle bought and restored an old presbytery in a village in the Languedoc. They now run Le Presbytère as a French style Chambre d’Hôte. Martin however is far too passionate about food to give up cooking so they now enjoy serving dinner to their customers on the terrace of Le Presbytère on warm summer evenings. Martin runs occasional cookery courses in Le Presbytère and Síle’s brother Colm does week long Nature Strolls discovering the Flora and Fauna of the Languedoc.

Le Presbytère can be seen at: www.lepresbytere.net;
email: martin@lepresbytere.net