Hélène Darroze’s name has become synonymous with innovative, high-end French cuisine, but the chef has done her best to remain humble, despite opening several lauded restaurants and earning six Michelin stars. Her first restaurant, Marsan, named in honor of her hometown in the southwest of France, debuted in Paris in 1999, and she has since established Hélène Darroze at The Connaught in London and Hélène Darroze à Villa La Coste in Provence. She also runs a Parisian bistro, Jòia, and recently took over two restaurants at the Royal Mansour Marrakech. But it’s Marsan that holds her heart.
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“It’s one where we celebrate my roots, my family, my education, my take on my country,” Darroze tells Observer, speaking over Zoom from Paris. “I love all my restaurants. They’re all my babies and I love them. I don’t prefer one or the other. But Marsan is very special because I invested all my money [into it] 25 years ago, and then later, I invested all my money to refurbish it. I have a special connection to it.”
At the Royal Mansour, Darroze has taken over La Grande Brasserie, a traditional French fine dining restaurant, but she will also helm a Moroccan eatery in the historic hotel. She says she’s learned a lot during the process, including new techniques and flavors. “It’s the kind of food that I love because it’s so good and it’s about generosity,” Darroze says. “It’s the cuisine of romance. It’s the cuisine of flavor and emotion and, of course, sharing. There are so many similarities between this cuisine, myself and my way of cooking.”
The chef, who splits her time between London and Paris, continues to innovate and learn. While there are a few beloved classics that are mainstays on her menus, for Darroze, great food is about trying new things as often as possible. We spoke to her about celebrating 25 years with Marsan, how social media has impacted her restaurants and what makes a great meal.
Not really. People remind me all the time that it’s a success, et cetera, et cetera. But if I stop and I think about it, the first thing that comes into my mind is happiness. It’s a lot of happiness. Some of my colleagues have always told me, “Oh, you’re still on Saturday evenings? You’re still at the service with guests and in the kitchen? You are crazy. You don’t need to do that.” But it’s my life and I love it. I love meeting the guests. I love sharing with my team. I love creating happiness from my food. So the first word [I think of] is happiness, but it’s also a lot of work and a lot of responsibility. I have some extremely beautiful memories. Marsan is the mother restaurant and it opened so many doors to other things. It’s incredible.
No, I won’t say that. But particularly when I am here in Paris, at Marsan, I am in the kitchen. I’m checking everything. I’m always the one who works on the [recipe] testing. I just did that today for the past two hours with one of my right hand [chefs]. But I’m not the one who cooks the meat or plates the salad. When I am in Paris at Marsan, I check all of the plates that leave the kitchen. That’s probably the only restaurant where I am doing that at the moment.
It has changed a lot, and particularly during the last 10 years. Paris was a very French scene. And in that sense, yes, it’s the capital of France. But the food was very, very French. It was about the bistro, it was about the café, it was about the brasserie, it was about fine dining, and you could find all of the best of these categories. But in the last 10 years, Paris has opened itself up to other cultures and other nationalities. Street food arrived in Paris. Japanese food, Asian food, African food. It took a bit of time to enter the Parisian scene, so now I can say it’s much more eclectic. I won’t say it’s more interesting, because it’s always been interesting, but you can really find the ingredients of the world in some of the Parisian restaurants, and that was not the case before.
I have a lot of favorites. But I have to say one from one of my former chefs, Jean [Sévègnes], and it’s called Café des Ministères. It’s one of the places to eat at the moment. It’s very classic; a very Parisian bistro. It has all of what I love—this generosity and welcoming attitude. Jean opened this restaurant with his wife, who he met in my restaurant. It is, for me, special. She is very strong in wine, so there is a real combination between wine and food. There is this generosity in the dining room in atmosphere, but also on the plate. It’s about seasonal, local products and French cuisine. When my friends ask me, “Where should I go?” I always say that.
That’s a question we always put to ourselves. Today we worked on a plate around white asparagus, and one of my chefs said, “Why don’t we keep the dish from last year, which was super successful?” Why? Because we need to move every day, in all of the details. On the plate, in the room, in the service. Every day, you have to start like it hasn’t happened before. You have to always put yourself in question. That is the key.
In my way of cooking and my way of working, no. Not at all. I’ve never tried to cook something because it’s Instagrammable. But [now] you are obliged to use it as a way to communicate. It has become a big part of our communication. For example, tomorrow we will have a photoshoot to shoot the new menu for one of the restaurants, and that’s something we didn’t have before. We didn’t need so many photos. But it doesn’t affect the way we cook.
For the bistro [Jòia], there is a new dish that is the neck of the duck with beautiful things stuffed inside, which is very traditional. We keep the head on with the beak and the tongue, which is confit and very tasty, inside. We put that on a wooden board. When I showed that to my team they told me, “Oh my God, for Instagram it will make the buzz.” And I never thought about that. It’s something I saw my grandmother cooking so many times because we didn’t want to lose the neck or the head. But some dishes on Instagram will have a big impact. When we opened Jòia there was a mille crepe with matcha, and on Instagram it made the buzz. But I just cooked it because I remembered having this cake in Japan, and it was so beautiful and I wanted to cook it again.
The way I cook, for me, is always the same. You choose the best of the product and it’s [about] the taste and the product. And the emotion that you will give through to the taste and the product. I will never lose that. It’s my philosophy. It’s my DNA.
Yeah, sure, when I have an emotion. I have a lot of followers, so when a chef gives me an emotion with their food I can share that on social media. If I can tell my followers “Go to this place,” I do that for sure.
I have this idea that nothing is won. You have to come back a little bit to put yourself in question again immediately. Everybody says to me, “You have six Michelin stars and all these restaurants,” but for me I just work. That’s it. It’s not a question of pride. I have this feeling that nothing is won. So I don’t really realize [my success] and it’s better like that. I always do my best and that’s it. And I’m not alone. I have amazing teams in all the restaurants and around me, and that’s very important for me. I’m not alone and it’s the success of a whole team. I’m part of the team. I have friends who fight for women in Afghanistan. Another one is an oncologist and works a lot to improve the science. These people are amazing. Me? I just cook.
It was with my family. My mom, my daughters, my nephew, some friends. It was at home. I love welcoming people. I cooked choucroute, which is a very traditional dish from Alsace with fermented cabbage and a lot of sausage and pork. It’s a winter dish. It was super good to share it. I cook it once a year. My mother, she is the queen of crepes. She has this reputation, so everybody was expecting that. And there was good wine. And it was a Sunday and there was sunshine. That was probably my last great meal. For me, a good meal is good people around the table sharing dishes with a good ambiance.
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