TRB Boss Ignace Lecleir Gives Casual a Try
It’s almost strange to see Ignace Lecleir not wearing a suit. When he greets me on a cold December morning in front of Temple Restaurant Beijing (TRB), he is sporting a jacket, shirt with no tie, and dark blue jeans. All clean and impeccable, of course, but not necessarily the Ignace that any regular patron of first Maison Boulud and now TRB is accustomed to seeing.
In eight years in Beijing, Ignace’s attention to detail and focus on service and training, in addition to serving some of the city’s finest food, has contributed greatly to raising the standards for all of those things in the local restaurant scene. His outward appearance, however, seemingly clashes a bit with his restaurant philosophy.
“Good hospitality is very spontaneous. Trying to keep things natural is very important,” he said.
He told a story about a new hostess who accidentally told a customer’s wife that a birthday cake had been prepared for her. The customer was understandably angry, and the hostess felt terrible about having spilled the beans. “On her own, she went out and bought flowers for the woman celebrating the birthday and offered them to her. Both of them were very pleased that she went out of her way to do that,” Ignace said.
For TRB’s first two years, it was strictly suit and tie for Ignace and the exceptional historical setting that the restaurant occupies. But when Chef Brian McKenna wrapped up at The Courtyard, next to the Forbidden City’s Donghuamen east gate, it was an opportunity Ignace didn’t want to pass up.
“My first meal ever in Beijing when I came to open Maison Boulud was at The Courtyard,” he
recalled fondly.
“When TRB Bites first opened for tastings, Ignace experimented with a genuinely casual approach that included service with no tablecloths. Even an easy audience like family and close friends thought it was a bridge too far. “We wanted to do something even more casual, but the feedback wasn’t so…positive,” he said. “People associate that venue with fine dining.”
It’s been a learning experience so far for Ignace. “Every restaurant I’ve created has never quite turned out the way I thought,” he said. “The pricing is casual, even if the experience is not entirely.” He also added that TRB’s customers “want service even if the feel is casual,” noting that Bites offers valet parking.
TRB Bites wasn’t Ignace’s only new venue in 2015, although he had a different idea for the other one, their events space, TRB Copper. “I passed by the site all the time on my way to work, and one day the door was open and peeked inside. I kept thinking about how I could move in there and live with my family,” he said. The landlords, however, were adamant that the space, a former copper wire factory, could only be used for commercial purposes. Disappointed but seeing an opportunity, Ignace saw the site as a place where TRB’s catering could find its own home.
“I saw it as an event space because we do quite a bit of catering. Requests began coming in more than before. Copper is an in-house events space because our catering and Copper are technically separate. We will also use it for more TRB-generated events next year, maybe even brunch,” Ignace said.
For 2016, Ignace said that “nothing has actively presented itself” in terms of new opportunities, but seeing how quickly he moved to expand TRB’s presence in 2015, we know that anything could happen.
More stories by this author here.
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Photo: Uni
