Posted by Admin in News on September 19, 2022
Now we are pleased to announce the return of our fabulous 4-day Songwriting Course in June 2023. Better still, with a multi award-winning musical maestro tutor: Mike Batt!
Read about our all-new songwriting course here. Places will disappear quickly, so be sure to secure your place and develop your musical skills with a living legend!
Dates: 9th – 12th June 2023
Price: £995, £850 for non-participants sharing room and £60 single-occupancy supplement
(5% discount if you’ve attended a previous course!)
Posted by Admin in News on March 3, 2022
French House Party’s shutters have been closed for almost three dismal years.
But as governments open borders again, it looks like the end of the misery is nigh. Huzzah! Our fingers might still be lightly crossed behind our backs, but our eyes are firmly fixed on the horizon, and a new dawn of blissful normality.
Which means a big ‘Bienvenue’ from all of us on the FHP team. We can’t wait to welcome visitors once more, to visit Carcassonne’s super restaurants, markets, castles and vineyards, to swim in the pool, soak up the sunshine and gaze upon those sunflower fields of South-West France.
And naturally, our plans are in place for 2022’s residential learning courses at The French House Party, Carcassonne.
The first Gourmet Explorer break will begin on Friday 6 May and ends on Wednesday 11 May – six days of lavish and sophisticated creativity with our star chefs Jean-Marc Boyer and Gregory Legros plus extras such as outings to the top restaurants and vineyards of the region.
Already that course is almost full but there are still a couple of places left, and we have another course planed for September (dates tba). Within those 6-day courses we offer 3-day Cuisine in Brief breaks, or even a single session of instruction with lunch or dinner included. Plus, we’re in the process of scheduling another cookery course in September too. Click here to see all our course dates, and please let us know if you’d like to be informed about courses as they become available!
And our amazing Creative Writing tutor Sarah Hymas will be back in June. Can it really be her twelfth annual visit? So far we plan just one week, from 13 – 18 June, but Sarah might be persuaded to stay on to operate a second week’s course, depending upon demand. Find out more!
Click here to book, for more information, or to get in touch… See you in France!
Posted by Admin in News on September 6, 2021
French House Party Carcassonne has the perfect quick-fix answer to all this. Raise a cheer because TWO six-day residential courses are on the horizon over the next month.
From 24 September our celebrated Gourmet Explorer cookery course will whet a few appetites – and as well as that on we simply can’t wait until 2 October when the first Creative Writing course in two years will take place. Hurrah for freedom!
There have been a couple of exciting tweaks in tutor line-ups for both courses (see details below) but the biggest new factor is that to ensure safety for everyone, in accordance with the law in France we will need all-comers to have proof of their doubly-vaccinated status. (For returners to the UK, we will help you with any PCR arrangements which are needed.)
Here are the facts:
Jean-Marc Boyer
Gregory Legros
Leading the culinary team is our regular super-chef Jean-Marc Boyer, owner of the Michelin* Le Puits de Tresor in Lastours. It is now 12 years since the inspirational Jean-Marc began teaching at FHP (he’s had his Michelin star for even longer than that) – and he will no doubt be working his usual magic this month with guests whose desire is to raise their cookery skills to a higher plane.
Joining him will be another local star, Gregory Legros. Greg is a world-class chef whose career has taken him to the kitchens of some of the most prestigious hotels and restaurants in the world. This year he returned from the five-star hotel in Oman where he was head patisserie chef; prior to that, he spent years in the same role at the impressive Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados.
Now he’s back in the Languedoc with his wife and family and aside from his teaching role training other professional chefs in the region, his own separate enterprise is creating magnificent cakes to order.
Along with outings to restaurants and other food and wine production visits, guests on this course are guaranteed an amazing six days of using and learning about the region’s delicacies from French House Party’s masters of the culinary arts.
All-inclusive Gourmet Explorer price: £1390 pp (single occupancy supplement £200; non-participant sharing participant’s room £200 reduction). Click/tap here to enquire or book!
Whether you’re new to writing or an established author, whether you’re a poet or a prose-writer, this course offers the chance to write, play, experiment and share your work under the guidance of an experienced writer and creative writing mentor.
Creating character, atmosphere and coherent structures; studying plot, pace, dialogue, imagery, the power and economy of language – these are topics which will be explored.
Rosie Garland is the talented tutor for this course. Rosie writes poetry, long and short fiction and sings with post-punk band The March Violets.
Her work appears in The Guardian and elsewhere. Her latest poetry collection ‘What Girls do the Dark’ is shortlisted for the Polari Prize 2021. She has long experience of running workshops – notably with the Arvon Foundation – and is a creative writing mentor with The Ruppin Agency.
She’s written three novels: The Palace of Curiosities, Vixen, and The Night Brother, which the Times described as “a delight… with shades of Angela Carter.”
For more impressive information about Rosie, consult her website: www.rosiegarland.com
Rosie Garland
NB. Our regular Creative Writing tutor Sarah Hymas will be back with The French House Party from 11 June, 2022
All-inclusive Creative Writing course price: £995 pp (single occupancy supplement £60; non-participant sharing participant’s room £150 reduction). Click/tap here to enquire or book!
Price £1,460
A native of Carcassonne, Jean-Marc Boyer earned his reputation as one of France’s dynamic young chefs. He is much feted in his homeland with awards – among them a Michelin Star in 2007 – and receives glowing reviews in numerous publications and restaurant guides as well as international acclaim from high-profile chefs who have long recognised his talent. He also makes regular appearances on television, most recently featuring in an hour-long programme on the top French Channel TF1. He has worked on an annual as visiting guest celebrity chef for top gastronomic restaurants in Japan, China, Shanghai, New York and Norway.
Having trained in Paris, Jean-Marc spent more than 20 years in the capital city, working with some of the country’s greatest chefs at Michelin-starred restaurants, including 12 years at the 3* Ambrosie under Bernard Pacaund and finally at the Ritz. Returning to the Languedoc, he now enthusiastically produces fine local cuisine at his restaurant Le Puits de Tresor in the ancient Cathar town of Lastours. Jean-Marc is passionate about his work and sees himself as an artisan, talking of creating dishes spontaneously and instinctively, using the local and seasonal produce grown and reared in the area. He sums up his philosophy in three words: ‘Quality, authenticity and rigour’
What does the celebrated Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados have in common with French House Party? Well, the most important connection is Patisserie Chef and Chocolatier M. Gregory Legros, one of our chefs d’excellence tutoring our 2022 courses.
Gregory Legros was six when he decided to become a chef. After his chef’s training he centred his gaze on patisserie, spending a further three years under the tutelage of an inspirational pastry chef. “He was my mentor, teaching me the solid basics which enabled me to fly by myself,” says Gregory.
And fly he did. He spent a decade working in various Michelin restaurants in France, including Michel Rostang in Paris and Le Majestic on the Croisette in Cannes – a historic luxury hotel built in 1926 which is teeming with movie stars during the Cannes Festival.
Then in 2004 Gregory left his home in this part of France to live and work abroad. He established his international reputation in some of the most prestigious restaurants in the world’s leading 5-star hotels: in New Zealand, in Vietnam, in Oman – where he was Head Patisserie Chef – and at the legendary Sandy Lane Hotel where he spent years in the same role.
Now he and his family are back home and as well as teaching at a local culinary college – where he trains other professional chefs – Greg has built up a separate private enterprise creating magnificent cakes to order. And tutoring our French House Party clients too, of course.
Originally from Gers, Rémi Touja grew up amongst vineyards, cereal crops and farm poultry. It was therefore natural that his parents would pass on the value of quality products and the pleasure of cooking with them.
With this culinary background, he perfected his art at the hotel school of Auch, before working for numerous Michelin-starred restaurants across the length and breadth of France where he developed his taste for excellence.
In 2013, his passion and creativity led him to become French Dessert Champion, winning the much sought-after Sucre d’Or national patisserie championship prize for pastry chefs and in 2016 he realised his entrepreneurial dream by opening what has become a most renowned patisserie shop in Carcassonne.
‘When I imagine patisserie, I do everything I can to create emotion, pleasure and new sensations, and for that we must continually innovate. An explosion of different flavors in the mouth one after the other together with a joyful melée of textures!’
