Fromage, vin et charcuterie Népalais

“It's Kathmandu.”

Just as the family was sitting down for one of its extended lunches, that jubilant cry was from François Driard’s grandfather announcing the next posting for his diplomat parents. 

Driard (pictured) was 18 in the summer of 1996, a bit of a hippie already, and his life was about to change forever with the magical word “Kathmandu”.

“I was awed with that information from my grandfather, nothing else mattered … In France in the 1990s, Kathmandu had a mythical aura,” Driard recalls.

He came to Kathmandu for Christmas that year to visit his stepfather, the French Ambassador Michel Lummaux. It was to be the first of many visits during school holidays, before he decided to permanently settle down in Nepal.

“Kathmandu, and Nepal, were very different then, it was magical, I liked the nature, the people, civilisation, temples, trees,” says Driard, who explored the country sitting on the top of buses. “Visitors talk about the crazy urbanisation, traffic jams today, and all that is true. But Kathmandu has not lost its soul.”

After his stepfather’s tenure in Nepal ended, Driard worked as a business reporter for international publications but decided he did not want to be anyone’s employee anymore. In 2007 he landed in Kathmandu with €20,000 in savings to invest. 

He knew a few crucial things about himself: he liked food and nature, which is very much tied up with his upbringing--full of lively conversations during lunch and dinner at the family table between abundant cheese, wine and cigars.

So he decided it would be cheese, and registered Himalayan French Cheese and went to the French Alps for a month to learn how to make Tomme de Savoie.

“Cheese making is such an ancient craft and so I thought I won’t need much money or studying which I hated and indeed, if you have a tamako bhado and fire you are set,” explains Driard. But Nepal’s temperature and humidity were not ideal, even at higher altitudes. The first customers for his cheese were the Hyatt Regency and Nina and Hager. But he needed to create a market for cheese in a country which only knew hard churpi in the north and soft paneer in the south.

He started selling his cheeses at the Summit Hotel weekend market, expanding to his own 1905 Farmer’s Market which later moved to Le Sherpa in Maharajganj, where it is now, and also a market at Labim Mall in Pulchok.

He had cow dairies in Nuwakot and Dhulikhel, and finally a yak cheese unit at 3,379m in Ramechhap. It was the yak blue cheese from here that went on to win a Gold Medal in France, putting Nepal’s French cheese on the world map.

“People come and try our cheese at the market, they ask questions. There is a lot of education to be done about cheese,” adds Driard, who also has three cheese shops in the Valley.

Driard now makes 25 types of cheese. The products are being noticed and every year he has French students coming to Nepal to learn the art of yak cheese making.

“In France, one family or company makes one kind of cheese for generations. In that I’m very unique as a cheese artisan,” he says. “The students come in to learn but I tell them to also teach us something too, add another cheese to my collection.”

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Being a foodie, Driard is now also dabbling in meat with his own charcuterie at Meatini with bacon, ham, sausage and pâtés. All of this is now served at his Emilio’s Pizza, a leafy hideaway in Lazimpat. His South Side in Moksh is probably the smallest wine bar in the world.

“I call the process sublime,” says Driard of his ventures, which have grown organically. “You need the same temperature and humidity of 12°C and 80% for cheese, meat and wine.”

Emilio’s speciality is the eight-cheese pizza (which has eight types of cheeses), and a pizza with bhutan topping (not the country but fried intestines and organs Nepali-style). He has opened a small branch at Courtyard in Pokhara.

With two artisanal cheese units, two farmers’ markets, a meat processing unit, a bakery, and wine bar he now envisions a vineyard so he can add Nepali wine to his repertoire. Another future plan is to start up an agri-tourism business where customers can drink, eat and work in peace.

In the past 20 years in Nepal, Driard has not always succeeded in his ventures but this hasn’t curbed his enthusiasm. He is learning as he goes, and like an old wine, Nepal is growing on him. Its slowness suits his French art de vivre with eating slowly outdoors, having conversation, importing less. 

“I have proven that with even a little money you can do a lot of things in Nepal,” adds Driard. “In the West, they easily invest half a million euros on a cheese factory, I invested 10 times less.”