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Helene of the Connaught says a chef's place is in the kitchen, not on television
Benedict Moore-Bridger, Evening Standard15 Jul 2008
London's newest double Michelin-starred chef today turned the heat up under celebrity restaurateurs who do not spend enough time in their kitchens.
Hélène Darroze, who has a restaurant in Paris, has just opened her second, at the Connaught Hotel following its £70 million renovation.
She takes over from Gordon Ramsay's protégé Angela Hartnett, whose tenure ended after he refused to allow Hartnett to provide room service.
In a major coup, Darroze - one of France's most distinguished cooks - has signed a 10-year deal with the Mayfair hotel. But unlike her predecessor's boss, the southern French chef said she would not open any more restaurants and would stay in the kitchen.
The 41-year-old told the Standard: "It is very important for me to be where I cook - very important to be in the restaurant where my name is. The two [restaurants] are enough for me. For the moment and for the future.
"When I am in Paris I am always worried because I am not in London, and the same the other way round. I don't want the stress. In London and Paris this is the best place I can find so I have the best choice."
Hotel manager Thomas Kochs echoed the sentiment. He said: "She is very, very involved. She will be here which our guests find very important - that there is someone in the kitchen cooking the food and not just a brand name over the door.
"It is very important for the restaurant and much more authentic."
The comments will be seen by some as a thinly veiled attack on celebrity chefs such as Ramsay, who has 21 restaurants in locations as widespread as London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Dubai. Helene Darroze at The Connaught is the chef 's second venture, following her highly regarded eponymous restaurant on the Left Bank in Paris.
Darroze trained in her family's hotel in Les Landes, south of Bordeaux, before moving to Monte Carlo's Louis XV hotel under Alain Ducasse.
She later returned to the family hotel before moving to her own restaurant in Paris, winning two Michelin stars in 2003.
Her move to London comes amid rising tensions between Ramsay and French chefs, after he claimed: "I've had a bellyful of the French coming over here and telling us how sh*t our food is. We have cheese on toast, they have croque-monsieur. They just have posher names."
Darroze put any differences down to chefs' personalities.
She said: "We cook with emotions so of course we don't have the same sensibilities, same emotions, or education, so you can see some difference. A chef cooks with heart, with personality. A dish is part of ourselves so the way I will cook will be very different from the way Tom Aiken or Gordon Ramsay cook.
"British guests are ready to understand and to have a French chef. When you are this level, whether you are French or British, you have the same sense of perfection - of wanting to do well."
About 70 per cent of the produce she uses comes from France. As well as signature dishes such as Gillardeau oyster tartare with caviar d'aquitaine jelly and le poulet jaune de chez Monsieur Duplantier, British dishes are also evident: le sole de Douvres and, with a nod to the local butchers in Carlos Place, le boeuf Aberdeen Angus de Chez Allen's of Mayfair.
"The best compliment you can give to me is to come back so I hope people will come back,"
Reader views (1)
Which is exactly what we used to hear from Gordon Ramsay a few years ago and now look at him, he's never off our screens.
- Geraldine, London, 15/07/2008 13:11
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