Words and photos by Ashley Joanna
Edited by Breandán Kearney
Humans of Belgian Beer is a series of photographic portraits which celebrate a people and their culture.
At 16 years old, Ricarda was already dreaming of owning her own restaurant. As a child, she played outside, in the countryside village of Schönberg where she grew up, and enjoyed creating dishes in her family kitchen and learning recipes from her mother. For her parents and three older sisters, she would often cook less mainstream meals such as veal tongue with a madeira sauce, served with croquettes and cauliflower.
Since Ricarda found her passion at a very young age, she knew there was no other alternative and began working in different restaurants to learn from chefs she admired. She worked for seven years under chef Walter Schröder at Le Luxembourg restaurant in the North of the country Luxembourg, constantly under time pressure and working 12+ hour days and late nights.
At Le Luxembourg, Ricarda learned not only how to become a better chef, but also how to handle the business and management of a restaurant. The five times Michelin Star chef made it through her apprenticeship because of her dedication to her passion, her strong work ethic, and with the help of her grandma Mathilde’s support and advice: “Hold out, keep your mouth shut, and persevere.”
A dream became reality and Restaurant Quadras was born in 2016. The restaurant is filled with quality food products from Belgium and France. There’s a considered wine selection, as you would expect from a Michelin Star chef, but there’s also a small, curated beer menu which includes beers from nearby Brasserie de Belvaux and from the brewery at the Trappist Abbey of Orval. There’s also Stella Artois. Beer in Belgium is elegant and sophisticated, offering acidic, fruity, and spicy flavours which pair great with quality food; but beer in Belgium is also a simple lager—whether that’s industrial, for better or worse; brewed at an independent family brewery; or produced by “craft” brewers—which colleagues often share after a long shift.
Ricarda has employed a small, but dedicated staff, who work under the glow of the kitchen’s abundant window light. Ricarda’s touch—a vibe of simple elegance—pervades the atmosphere of the restaurant as soon as you walk through the front doors of Quadras on Saint Vith’s main street. Not only is the restaurant her workplace, but it is the home that she shares with her husband, Kevin, and her 4 year old daughter, Kaia.
Ricarda believes the key to success in owning your own business is to engender a good atmosphere within the kitchen team and family. Before social distancing measures, the final guest would leave for the night, the last pan and glass would be set back in their place, and the orders would be completed for the next week, and Ricarda and her employees would sit on folding chairs in the kitchen pass celebrating the success of the night with a cold beer.
“I am grateful to have found my passion at a very young age,” says Ricarda. “As soon as I stepped foot in the restaurant for apprenticeship at 16 years old, there was no alternative. I knew my life’s purpose and destination from that moment and I haven’t looked back since.”
I knew my life’s purpose and destination from [the] moment [I stepped into a restaurant aged 16 years old] and I haven’t looked back since.
—Ricarda Grommes
