Rémi Féraut (right) with chef Emile van de Staak. Photo Tim van de Griend Who: Rémi Féraut
What: washing dishes in a two-star Michelin restaurant
Why: to get inspiration
Hourly wage: €14, plus tips
You’ve got to make ends meet somehow. We can all borrow from Uncle Duo, but there are also students who earn money in unusual ways. In this series, we put some interesting side jobs in the spotlight. This time we meet Rémi Féraut (26), a BSc student of Plant Sciences, who washes up at the two-star Michelin restaurant De Nieuwe Winkel in Nijmegen.
Three years ago, Resource talked to Rémi about how he was establishing his own food forest in France. The forest is now growing apace. Meanwhile, it is no coincidence that Rémi works at De Nieuwe Winkel, a restaurant that serves produce from a food forest.
‘The restaurant has two Michelin stars, so everything has to be perfect. We don’t keep all the opened bottles of wine and beer for the next day. We get to taste those after hours, with explanations from our beer steward. I work primarily as a dishwasher, but I sometimes help prepare ingredients. Peeling chestnuts, for instance. The restaurant is intended to be a tasting room, expanding your palate. For example, we serve chocolate made from chestnuts and dishes made with nut pâté instead of meat. Those nuts grow here in the food forest in Groesbeek. I hope guests are inspired by the delicious food and become enthusiastic about food forests. And that they will want to plant more trees. Trees restore soil and help create a more resilient farming system. In fact, trees are the solution to everything. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second-best time is now.
‘The best thing about my job is that I can get inspiration for future projects in France here. I’ve nearly finished my Bachelor’s degree. In a year or two, I want to go back to France, where I planted the food forest three years ago. It is not mature yet, it needs another couple of years to reach a significant level of production. I’ll work part-time at the food forest and teach part-time at a secondary school.
Trees are the solution to everything in fact
Every year, students from local schools get some work experience at the food forest so as to introduce them to this approach to farming. I also want to set up a research centre on different forms of agroforestry. I want to sell the harvest from the food forest to local restaurants. One local restaurant is already sourcing spices from that forest.’
Are you or do you know someone with an interesting side job? Send an email to steven.snijders@wur.nl
