A SINGAPORE PRESS HOLDINGS WEBSITE
March 2, 2010 A 32-YEAR-OLD French chef who serves tea to match her Chinese-themed dishes has won a precious star in the latest edition of France’s prestigious Michelin restaurant guide released yesterday. The honour for Adeline Grattard, 32, and Yam’Tcha, her small restaurant near Paris’ Louvre museum, was a break from the norm for the 101-year-old guide, sometimes criticised as too traditional and out-of-touch. Grattard attributes the success of the restaurant – which opened just a year ago – partly to her Chinese influences, which are less common in Paris than the Japanese or Thai fusion practised by other French chefs. Yam’Tcha serves dishes such as mushrooms and chestnuts accompanied by carefully chosen vintage Chinese teas, or suckling pig with aubergines set off by a spicy red Cotes du Rhone wine. The chef said that being a woman has also given her an edge in France’s maledominated kitchens. “That has played a part. Not many women set up all by themselves,” said Grattard, who previously worked for two years in Hong Kong, where she had lived with her Chinese husband. “I saw and ate lots of things there. My chef encouraged me to bring back whatever I wanted from the market to try it out,” she said. The guide’s editor-inchief, Mr Jean-Luc Naret, said he saw a brave new world taking shape as, in the wake of the economic crisis, young itinerant chefs like Grattard came home to France to roost. “There has been a real explosion of young chefs who are setting the trend. They travel the world and come back with new cooking techniques,” he said. “There are more and more Japanese chefs in the kitchen in France and more and more women. The next few decades there will be more of a female influence, I hope.”
