Adeline Grattard : the best French products with Chinese cooking techniques
- 1* chef at Restaurant Yam’tcha in Paris
- French & Chinese fusion cuisine
- Head chef at BO Innovation in HK
More 1 star chefs here. Other French chefs here.
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By combining the best French products with Chinese cooking techniques, in just a few years Yam’Tcha’s young chef has become one of the darlings of Paris’s gastronomic elite.
Profile of a thirty-something in tune with her time who loves fine food and is passionate about tea and wine!
“As a child, I dreamed of ginger and chilli!” Adeline Grattard has certainly retained the high standards she developed growing up in Burgundy. But for everything else – inspiration, style and technique, she looked elsewhere. In cookery books, which she devoured at an age when other youngsters were reading teenage comics or magazines, but also by opening up to different cultures at a young age. “I had the opportunity to travel a lot with my parents”, she says. “Obviously, that only increased my fascination for exotic cuisine”.
Learning the secrets of Chinese cooking
She started off studying German, but the desire to cook was stronger. In Paris, she joined the famous Ferrandi cookery school. She worked in famous places in France with top chefs like Flora Mikula*, Yannick Alleno*** or Pascal Barbot***. Then she met Chi Wah Chan. A pivotal moment in her life. She fell in love with this leading tea specialist and decided to follow him to Hong Kong where she learned the secrets of Chinese cooking. She worked two years as head chef at the Chinese Iconic restaurant BO Innovation with Alvin Leung*** in Hong Kong.On returning to Paris, they created a little-known restaurant: Yam’Tcha. She worked in the kitchen, he served tea. But the first Michelin star arrived in just a few months and with it, success. They had to move to a bigger place, which they designed together. Located a stone’s throw from the Louvre Museum, the new Yam’Tcha is “a Venetian palace in a Chinese style”, she says.
At Yam’Tcha, tea and wine are equally important
“We serve a lot of tea but we also have over 200 wine labels, including some very good bottles, which we age with a lot of care and attention. Whilst tea is good for cleansing the palate and wine is good for strengthening it, there are no set rules for the pairings that we suggest because the feeling is also very important.”
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