“Qwhen December 24 has passed, I'm on vacation!”says Nathalie. Far from the pale and cold midday sun, the ardent and sunny owner of Fjord, a restaurant serving Scandinavian specialties, lifts her beautiful blue gaze from the fleshy salmon that she cuts with surgical precision.
Here, behind this flagship store on Rue François-Guisol, at the port, where Riviera customers from Cannes to Monaco snap up the best natural wild Danish, Scottish, Norwegian and Icelandic salmon, their eggs, shrimp, sour herring. sweets, tarama, delicatessens, sweets, alcohols… coming from the cold, we do not slip like an eel towards idleness. The team is firmly anchored at work. Particularly at Christmas.
It's all hands on deck: Nathalie, her husband Stéphane, Claire, their daughter, Antonio, Estelle, plus, as extras, two slicers and a cook, dedicated in particular to making homemade blinis that will knock the little one off her rock. siren: “400 per day, explains Nathalie, Most of them are pre-reserved and can be kept in the fridge for 4 or 5 days.”
For over 40 years
In this emblematic establishment, it has been happening like this for more than 40 years. When Nathalie's parents – Jacques Caissotti from Nice and his wife, Norwegian Viveka – returned from Sweden where they had democratized French bread for 10 years to open, in 1983, Fjord. “My parents were the first to make gravelax salmon with dill, smoked eels and herring, löjrom or bleak eggs…”
A year ago, Viveka joined The Little Match Seller in troll heaven. But life goes on. So, there is no question of giving up, especially during the holiday periods.
“These start in September with the ordering of biscuits and sweets, much more complex today. Before, it was easier, we went through representatives, but now, in Scandinavian countries, you can no longer order moderately, this is why small Scandinavian businesses are gradually disappearing, however, as we have been loyal for 40 years, the suppliers, who knew my parents, have not let us go.”
Trucks full of salmon
Salmon are pre-ordered and checked in mid-November. Then they arrive: “Every week, from Wednesday or Thursday, we receive them by truck, in fillets or whole. They are already smoked, on the other hand, everything that is marinated, everything that is steamed such as salmon in a torchon (6 to 7 per day), we are the ones who prepare, starting Thursday.” Suffice to say that from December 19 to 24, it's busy in this Nice-style Scandinavia!
The restaurant reassigned to stock
The most complicated thing currently? The space to manage. “We would have to push the walls, because everything happens at the same time”, laughs Stéphane. Orders, stock, people.
Funny marmalade. “We rent fridges installed in the restaurant, which is closed and does not reopen until January 3. We also have a cash register specially reserved for collecting orders, which started on the 21st and lasts until December 24. There are two flows of customers, those for orders and those for the last minute on the big day. This way, no one crosses paths and waits are reduced.”
Christmas over, calm returns to the Fjord. And we breathe better: “Activity resumes on December 26, but it is three times less busy for New Year's Eve…”
