Three thousand miles from his native Lyon, Frenchman Claude Abry is living his dream in the Middle East, where he once cooked for royalty and has now traded his chef's toque for helmets and Harley-Davidsons.
"After my family, I have two loves in life: cooking and riding motorcycles," Abry, 43, told AFP at his Harley dealership outside the Jordanian capital, Amman — a challenging project in a country where bikes were banned for more than two decades for reasons of "public safety".
"Cooking and riding motorcycles give me and my family freedom. I had nothing and I worked very hard to become a chef — and one of the best," he said.
In Lyon, France's gastronomic capital, Abry worked under iconic chef Paul Bocuse before moving to Jordan and cooking for King Abdullah II — who, like his late father, King Hussein, is a motorcycle enthusiast and Harley owner.
"I was the youngest pastry chef with Bocuse," Abry said, but declined to speak of his time at Jordan's royal palace for confidentiality reasons.
Abry moved to Jordan in 2000, after having also lived in Beirut and Kuwait.
