What started as a failed job search for an engineering role in France 23 years ago has turned into an unexpected success story for Singaporean Ewan Irwan – now a beloved baker in a small French village.
Mr Ewan, 51, first moved to France at 28 with his French wife, hoping to work as an engineer. When he couldn’t find a job in the field, he decided to switch paths, taking on odd jobs to make ends meet while enrolling in a baking course.
He found work in a bakery in Lyon and, two years later, decided to move to Saint-Robert, a remote village about two hours from Toulouse.
He took over its only bakery, Le Fournil de Saint-Robert, 18 years ago, settling in with his then-wife Sophie and their young son Kalis, now 19 and training to be a sous chef in France.
His story came to light when Malaysian media outlet Says posted a TikTok video of him at work on Sept 1. The clip went viral, attracting more than 562,000 views, 29,000 reactions, and nearly 500 comments.
The video shows him hard at work, using a traditional wood-fired oven to bake pain de campagne, a classic French country bread. He begins his prep as early as 2.30am – a routine he has kept for the past 18 years.
When The New Paper reached out, Mr Ewan was surprised, insisting he was just an ordinary person baking bread in France.
Winning hearts with bread
“The people in the village were curious at first to see an Asian face running their bakery,” Mr Ewan told TNP.
Bread is no small matter in France, he explained.
“It is a very important thing to the French people, their traditional sourdough bread which I make. It’s ‘patrimont’ – heritage in French, and it is something very sacred. So I have to be very respectful when making it.”
Eventually, through his generosity and his skill as a baker, he won their hearts of the villagers
.
“I think I make good bread, which is why they like me,” he said modestly.
Running the bakery has been demanding – sometimes he sleeps less than four hours a day during the busy summer holiday season. He credits much of the bakery’s success to his ex-wife, calling it a “team effort all these years.”
Today, Mr Ewan serves not just the 300-odd residents of Saint-Robert but also customers from surrounding towns – and even Parisians with holiday homes in the area, who stock up on his loaves before returning to the capital.
“When they know I am going back to Singapore for my annual holiday, they will remind me that I have to come back,” he said.
The youngest of six siblings, Mr Ewan usually returns to Singapore every February or March for four to five weeks to visit his mother, three brothers, and two sisters
.
“I’m Malay, and family is very important. While appreciating and respecting the culture of the French, I need to retain my own culture,” said the Tampines native with a chuckl
e
. “I love Singapore, and in my heart, I’m completely Singaporean, even though I love life in France, too,” he added.
