The world's best female chef receives me in the tiny, cupboard-like office from which she surveys the kitchen of "Hélène Darroze," the Paris restaurant that bears her name. Framed photographs cover the wall: the restaurant's opening in 1999; Darroze being congratulated by former president Jacques Chirac for a meal she prepared for a Franco-German summit; Darroze with family members; Darroze in her chef's toque.
Darroze (48), is the reigning "World's Best Woman Chef", having picked up her trophy from British magazine Restaurant at its "World's 50 Best Restaurants" ceremony last June. "It was a beautiful surprise; so much happiness," she says in the melodic accent of southwest France. "It was a reward for my career, but also for my team."
Darroze learned the cupboard-office system from the chef Alain Ducasse, with whom she trained for three years. There's a chair either side of a small table, and room for nothing else. Sliding glass doors enable Darroze to keep an eye on her 35-strong staff.
"There's room for a woman in cuisine," Ducasse told her back in the early 1990s. Like Darroze, he is from the Landes region. Darroze had already earned a business degree from the École Supérieure de Commerce in Bordeaux, but she started at the bottom, washing lettuce, at Ducasse's Louis XV restaurant in Monaco. In 1995, she returned to her home town of Villeneuve-de-Marsan to run the restaurant that her great-grandfather had opened in 1890. She won the "Young Chef of the Year" award her first year.
Four years later, Darroze lived out the French tradition of the young provincial who “goes up” to Paris. It was a wrench to close the family restaurant, she says, but she followed her heart and professional interests. In 2008, she opened “Hélène Darroze at The Connaught” in Mayfair.
What does she mean by “philosophy of cooking”, the term she uses repeatedly? “I cook with my heart and my guts,” Darroze says. “With my emotions and sensitivity. I tell a story that is inspired by what I’ve felt, by childhood memories, travels … I cook with what I am.”
In 2005, Darroze published her autobiography, No One can Steal from me What I have Danced. It was eight years in the writing, and won a Gourmand World Cookbook award. "I tell the story of a young woman cook in love, who lives a hidden, forbidden passion," she recounts.
“What I say is that one doesn’t cook the same when one is in love or not, when one is suffering or not. I find dark days very inspiring. Perhaps because cooking is a refuge for me. When I’m disappointed, when my heart aches . . . at those moments I have a sharper creative spirit, because that’s the way to relieve stress, anxiety, pain.”
Darroze believes that men and women cook differently “because cooking is so linked to emotion and sensitivity and men and women are very different from each other. Obviously, that shows on the plate”. There are of course exceptions. “But men have a different approach. They want to show their technique, what they can do. They add the emotion at the end. Whereas women are the opposite. They cook with emotion, then add technique.”
The success of Darroze and the handful of women chefs who have won Michelin stars gives a misleading impression that women are breaking through in gastronomy. "Not really," Darroze says. "You have to be realistic. We're talking about four or five women." Only 4 per cent of the kitchens which appeared on last year's list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants are run by women.
What has changed, Darroze says, is that there are now more women than men in hotel school, the usual starting place for a French chef. “But will they go the distance?” she asks. “The level of pressure and stress demands sacrifices of a woman.”
Darroze was the model for Colette, the woman chef in the Pixar film Ratatouille. She says she would have declined Pixar's request to spend a week in her kitchen, had her assistant's little boy not been a huge fan of the Pixar film Cars.
In Ratatouille, Colette warns her new assistant Linguini: "How many women do you see in this kitchen? Only me. Why do you think that is? Because haute cuisine is an antiquated hierarchy built upon rules written by stupid old men, who've designed it to make it impossible for women to enter this world. But I'm still here! How did this happen? Because I'm the toughest cook in this kitchen!"
The cinema experience was “très sympa”, though Darroze finds the Colette character too hard. “I’m more flexible, more approachable,” she says.
Early morning to late night working hours are the main problem for women. “It’s not so much a question of being able as one of determination,” Darroze says. “I’ve had plenty of very talented women in my kitchens, but at some point they want to marry and have children. It’s a choice I respect. If at age 30 I’d been in love with someone who asked me to make that choice, I might have thought about it.”
Darroze’s life has been changed by the adoption of two Vietnamese girls, Charlotte (eight), and Quitterie (six). She had wanted to adopt since she was a teenager, and was drawn to Vietnam because it was one of few countries that entrust children to single mothers, and because a favourite aunt had lived there and “spoke of this country with so much love and respect”.
Darroze commutes between Paris and London on the Eurostar. This year, she moved her daughters from school in London to Paris. She's appears regularly on television, and dreams of opening a bistro in New York. Has she spread herself too thin? "It feels that way sometimes," she admits. "Right now, for instance. I need to refocus on what is essential: first of all, my family, then my two restaurants."
“Hélène Darroze” offers the choice of three tasting menus, of four to seven courses and one or two desserts. When I dined there on the eve of our interview, about half the clientele were foreign.
I chose Aquitaine farmed caviar with cauliflower panacotta and sea urchin emulsion; Scottish prawns with white truffle shavings, hazelnuts and roquette; woodpigeon from the Landes – cooked on a spit as bacon fat is drizzled over it; bream from Saint-Jean-de Luz with fennel and bouchot mussels; venison with pumpkin, Brussels sprouts and Mexican spices.
Every dish was presented like a painting. While each ingredient kept its specific character, the result was a harmonious blend of smells, textures and temperatures.
Despite the sophistication of her cuisine, Darroze says roast chicken and chips cooked in duck fat is her favourite meal. “Chicken is like Proust’s madeleine,” she explains. “It’s the sharing, family dish par excellence.”
Looking back on the past two decades, Darroze says she has “lived intensely, with my integrity and honesty intact”. She looks forward to coming decades “with the same passion. If it ever leaves me, I’ll stop”.
On January 31st, the Franco-Swiss chef Benoît Violier took his own life. The French foreign ministry had declared his Hôtel de Ville restaurant near Lausanne the "world's best restaurant" in December. A friend who had spoken to him several days earlier told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps there was no indication he was tired or in difficulty.
Darroze was deeply saddened to learn of Violier’s death. “It’s a great loss, for his family, his co-workers and the world of haute cuisine,” she says. But 13 years after another great chef, Bernard Loiseau, also took his own life, she stresses that the circumstances are not known, and one should not jump to conclusions.
The stress of the profession and the power of the food guides have been blamed for both suicides. When Loiseau died, the three-star chef Paul Bocuse, who had trained him, said “Bravo Gault & Millau, you won; your judgment cost a man’s life.” Gault & Millau had just downgraded Loiseau’s rating from 19 to 17/20.
“I keep a lot of distance from that kind of pressure,” says Darroze. Her Paris restaurant won two Michelin stars in 2003, but lost one in 2010. “Of course you care,” she says. She made up for it in London, where her restaurant won a first star in 2009 and a second in 2011.
“We’d like to receive a third star, but it’s not something that stresses me or gnaws away at me, not at all,” Darroze says. “Of course, like any business owner, you have stressful, difficult moments.” Loiseau often said that losing a Michelin star meant the loss of 40 per cent of turnover.
“That’s not why I get up in the morning,” Darroze concludes. “I do it to live out my passion. To be happy. I always say we are purveyors of happiness. Our job is to give happiness. That’s the most important thing: as long as the clients are there, as long as they’re happy and say it and come back, that’s the greatest star of all.”
Hélène Darroze is one of five women chefs to have earned a Michelin star in Paris. The others are:
Anne-Sophie Pic (46) – like Darroze, Pic is from a culinary family, and preceded Darroze as the World's Best Female Chef in 2011. Her Maison Pic restaurant in Valence has three Michelin stars, while the Dame de Pic near the Louvre in Paris has one. Pic also runs a restaurant in the Beau Rivage Palace Hotel in Lausanne. The Michelin guide calls her the "grande dame de la gastronomie".
Adeline Grattard (37) – won her Michelin star for Yam'Tcha restaurant in 2010. "Yam'tcha" means to drink tea, and Grattard offers a choice of wine or tea with her cuisine. She is helped by her husband Chi Wah Chan.
Stéphanie Le Quellec (33) – became known when she won the TopChef television contest in 2011. A white marble counter is all that separates diners from her kitchen in La Scène restaurant in the Hôtel Prince de Galles.
Virginie Basselot (36) – is only the second woman in France to have earned the accolade of "Meilleur Ouvrier de France". She is chef at the Hôtel St James, a former mansion near the Bois de Boulogne.
