For Thomas Le Clef, now a caterer in Wezembeek-Oppem, the health crisis was an opportunity to start out as a caterer and deliver around a hundred dishes a day. Portrait.

At 46, Thomas Le Clef already has a little over 25 years of experience in the Horeca sector. A graduate of the Namur hotel school, he added an additional year of specialization in 'caterer' before working in a brasserie in Louvain-la-Neuve. Still in Walloon Brabant, he managed a bed and breakfast and table d'hôtes in Grez-Doiceau with his parents from 1998 to 2006, and took the opportunity to teach his father how to cook.

These early professional experiences reinforced his desire to cook and pursue his own career, but, as he likes to say, "is it possible to run a restaurant and maintain a family life with four children?" A question that many chefs have asked themselves.

The response was not long in coming: he was hired by Sodexo as a demi-chef de partie in a retirement home in his town, rose through the ranks, worked for several companies, including Unijolly and ISS, before continuing his career at Compass Group – the largest collective kitchen company.

"Every five years, in these big companies, you have to respond to calls for tenders," explains Thomas, "but thanks to the system of the Collective Labour Agreement (CCT) No. 32bis, you are always taken on. Compass is the last company where I worked for seven years, I held the position of 'Banquet Manager' at the European Commission, which included, in particular, the organisation of the kitchen for the Commission's events."

Then came the coronavirus…

Thomas Le Clef's professional life could probably have continued like this - he is a man passionate about cooking - if it hadn't been for that famous first lockdown that abruptly ended his contract. "We thought it would only last two weeks," says his wife Manoelle, still at his side. "We weren't going to sit back and do nothing and we decided to launch daily delivery meals for people who were stuck at home.

We were quickly informed, Thomas continues, that we would no longer have any work the following week. This did not worry me because I had already been an independent supplementary caterer since 2006, but I must admit that I did not believe it. A friend who had come to eat at our place on Friday evening asked me if I did not want to cook for the overwhelmed families.

We thought about it all weekend, made menus, sent emails to our customers, and on the first day, we delivered our first dishes, including to the family who had suggested this solution to us… During the crisis, we went up to 100 dishes per day… With the opening of the bubbles, this of course decreased, but currently, we still offer daily dishes and banquets for events. So the Covid crisis did not stop us from working, it was even our springboard. When Compass announced a mass layoff, I asked to be included in the package. I had 20 years of seniority, this allowed us to launch into it fully…

We started with a small structure, with a semi-professional kitchen that I had set up for one-off events, but it quickly became too small. We then first found a shared kitchen in Sterrebeek from February 2021 to April this year, then we came across the production workshop of an old bakery that we bought. Finally, instead of diving, we jumped!

Rising to power

Although Thomas now employs delivery people and kitchen helpers, he started out doing everything himself, including delivering 100 meals a day! And this is even free in neighboring towns.

Every day, it offers a soup, a hot dish, a cold dish and a dessert for busy families, the elderly or customers who just want to treat themselves. On weekends, it also offers a festive dish and dessert, like in a restaurant. The dishes are prepared the day before and delivered cold the next morning. It is up to customers to reheat them.

"We were lucky enough to take over the clientele of 'Chaudron magique', a caterer from Woluwé Saint Lambert who was retiring. He only made dishes for the elderly, as some CPAS do... It was one of his clients who recommended us to take over the clientele. Le Chaudron magique itself distributed our menu to all its customers, recommending our family cuisine of daily specials.

Today, 75% of our customers are elderly people who have the means and who do not want to go through the CPAS. We also have overwhelmed families or couples whose children are no longer at home but who are still very active. Orders are made by email, telephone, Google form or paper version for our elders, based on a weekly menu. We also provide some business lunches, which we would like to expand. We deliver a cold buffet every Tuesday at noon for a company. We would like to have this every day and would be ready to develop our business in private schools.

We have also developed an original collaboration with the non-profit organization Cap'Event in Jodoigne, which offers a team of around thirty people with a slight mental handicap to serve our dishes at the table, this gives a cachet to our services. The feedback is extremely positive, because the people are well trained and well supervised. » An idea for your receptions?