Playfully often called “The Caviar Queen”, Natalie Rebeiz, COO of Caviar Home, was born right into a household of caviar pioneers; her late father Georges Rebeiz, well-known for founding the corporate “Caviar Home” in 1950 and brother, Peter Rebeiz, present CEO.

Natalie was uncovered to caviar from a really younger age and was actively concerned within the manufacturing from the age of eight. Natalie tells us of her distain for caviar at this age, “my father all the time taught us that once we packed caviar, you will need to all the time strive it beforehand to verify the standard, however I hated it, I actually hated it!” By Natalie’s childhood she would study every thing there was to learn about caviar and grew to like and respect the black pearls. She recalled the time she fell in love with caviar, aged 19. “I bear in mind vividly, opening a 1.8 kilo tin of Beluga from Iran, and the scent was euphoric, it hit me, and I used to be in love”. Her aim could be to maneuver to London and open the primary store within the UK. When Natalie was 20, she did precisely as she had got down to do… the primary of many caviar outlets had been born in considered one of London’s most outstanding postcodes of Mayfair. Prospects at present can spend greater than £1,700 for a single tin of the little gray sturgeon eggs. Its reputation grows all through the ever-changing market.

Forward, Natalie shares with us her journey into the world of caviar.

You might be at present based mostly in London. Are you able to tell us extra concerning the fascinating story behind Caviar Home & Prunier?

Since 1950, Caviar Home has traditionally been the world’s largest importer and distributor of high-quality caviar. In 2004 we joined forces with Prunier — the primary firm to provide caviar in France in 1920, with the all however modest aim of merely producing the very best caviar identified to man. The information and know-how of good caviar has been transmitted by Russian specialists to Prunier as early as 1921. Right this moment Prunier caviar continues to be produced in keeping with this heritage and historical recipes. Improved strategies in recent times have allowed us to acquire an excellent product, unique for its specific flavour and excellent style.

Each firms, which at present underneath one roof are known as Caviar Home & Prunier have remained unwilling to sacrifice high quality or any steps main thereto and due to this fact keep inside present market requirements. We proceed to consider that the one acceptable commonplace is your admiration, utilizing solely the very best uncooked supplies in each step of the way in which. Our caviar masters and manufacturing designers are all pushed with the identical aim: to supply the final word culinary sensations when experiencing a Caviar Home & Prunier product.

A primary store in Geneva in 1968 which your father opened, then one other one in Heathrow in 1983 which you opened aged solely 20. What particular wants did you see amongst trendy travellers which airports didn’t present solutions to?

Luxurious meals retail to go and take wherever on this planet. Nobody dreamt of taking caviar, salmon, cheese, or any of our different high-quality meals with them on a flight earlier than we opened. There was no luxurious or high-quality meals out there again within the 60s and 80s. All of the airport provided was duty-free items, so we had been the one different store airside within the early days.

Making the airport a part of the vacation spot. We love this idea! How do you prepare your employees to make travellers really feel welcomed and relaxed when airports are often synonymous with stress?

Workers retention is essential. We’ve got a member of our workforce that has simply celebrated her thirty ninth 12 months with us. She has change into an envoy for our model. We provide strict coaching making certain that every one employees members are absolutely educated about our product. All employees need to undertake repeatedly up to date and refreshed coaching of our service excellence steps. The employees really feel a part of a household, to reside and breathe the merchandise and love and have ardour for them.

You talked about a number of occasions that “freshness is within the DNA of Caviar Home & Prunier”. Are you able to elaborate additional on this?

Every thing produced within the seafood bars is ready in entrance of you. No hidden kitchens. All merchandise are delivered day by day to make sure freshness. And, all of our fish merchandise are from sustainable sources. We proceed to intently observe the progress inside aquaculture, particularly associated to sturgeon farming after all.

What made you resolve you to open a Caviar Home & Prunier on the Hong Kong airport, a market moderately far out of your European base? What did you study out of your Chinese language clientele?

Provide and demand. Our Chinese language clientele are a few of our greatest clients, craving distinctive produce.

With a world ban on wild caviar, what number of sorts of farmed caviar are there at present in the marketplace? Which number of caviar is Caviar Home & Prunier predominantly utilizing?

There are over 400 varieties. Caviar Home & Prunier, in contrast to many different suppliers of caviar worldwide, supply their very personal farmed caviar — Prunier. One of many principal caviar producers on this planet, Prunier was based over 100 years in the past and was the primary producer to acquire caviar from farmed sturgeons (in 1994), making a sustainable and protected different for endangered species within the Caspian Sea. Right this moment, the grain choice course of, in addition to the recipes of the Prunier Manufacture, make it attainable to provide caviars with very completely different flavours. There are at present seven Prunier caviars out there, together with three new Osciètre varieties.

The British Butler Institute has these days teamed up with luxurious manufacturers to help college students who’ve accomplished certification to use for contract positions with luxurious retail manufacturers. One such firm is Caviar Home & Prunier. Are you able to inform us extra on this partnership?

We’ve got labored with the butler faculty for a few years, and internet hosting coaching occasions all through our venues. In flip, we’ve got employed the butler faculty to supply service excellence coaching to our groups.

Caviar Home & Prunier can be now the only distributor of Balik salmon, which takes its title from a Russian phrase that means the choicest reduce of the fish. Inform us extra there about this foray into the high-end salmon market?

Introducing for the primary time ever in 1978 the fillet of smoked salmon, (Fillet Tsar Nicolaj) Balik launched to the world a very new method of salmon consumption and preparation originating from a 150-year-old recipe utilized by the imperial court docket of Russia.

Within the midst of the picturesque panorama of the Toggenburg area in Japanese Switzerland, you’ll discover the Balik Farm nestled snugly within the hills on the finish of the small village of Ebersol. One factor have to be stated from the outset: “Balik Räucherei” is the manufacture, the place arguably the world’s most well-known smoked salmon is produced. Right here, our smokery grasp and his workforce course of the noble Salmo Salar (salmon) in keeping with a secret previous Russian recipe right into a mouth-watering delicacy, which is then shipped to all corners of the world. The 4 manufacturing steps — watering, salting, smoking, and dressing — are all accomplished by hand. The one two items of apparatus that we use within the Balik Manufacture are digital scales and a vacuuming machine.

Thought-about by most lovers to be the best-smoked salmon on this planet, the Balik salmon traces its roots again to imperial Russia, the place the artwork of high-quality eating and its high quality reached unprecedented ranges among the many Russian aristocracy. If any smokery of salmon has ever shaken the world of smoked salmon it’s doubtless the Balik Smokery within the Swiss Alps.

The place do you see Caviar Home & Prunier 5 years from now? What are the important thing milestones forward?

Someday at a time.

Inform us about your wonderful fishing journey in Iran on the Caspian Sea a number of years again. The catch of a sturgeon there within the very birthplace of caviar will need to have been a moderately extraordinary expertise.

Again within the 90s, my brother and I went fishing with native Iranian fishermen — the bus journey from Teheran was hell and lasted eight hours. I used to be lined in a blue polyester abaya and didn’t put on any make-up — and it was an Osciètre that I pulled out from the ocean in an old style fishing web at 4 o’clock within the morning. An hour and a half after catching the fish I used to be having tea and consuming its caviar with the fishermen and looking out over the Caspian Sea. It was a tremendous feeling and the hospitality was heart-warming. I used to be additionally engaged on my e-book on the time, “Caviar – The Definitive Information” (2001) and so had introduced alongside a photographer. In one of many photos, the fisherman’s son had positioned himself within the fish’s stomach, to point out how large it was. It appeared so macabre that I didn’t publish it. We discovered a lot from that journey and it was right here that we determined we wanted our personal farm after seeing how depleted the shares had been changing into.

Are you able to divulge to our readers which number of caviar is your favourite?

My favorite can be our hero product, the Caviar Home Most interesting Beluga Caviar. “Beluga caviar is like no different caviar. It’s fully incomparable and unrivalled.” [Editor’s note: Beluga caviar evokes fond memories of her discovery of caviar as a young entrepreneur.]

For those who had been to call one mentor who has impressed you in your profession, who would that be?

My father, George Rebeiz

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