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“When I tasted food I said 'my God what is happening, I don’t know how to season anymore'.” Chef Hélène Darroze is describing the devastating effects of long Covid that left her unable to taste salt properly, a potentially life-changing development for a chef with five Michelin stars. “I had Covid at the beginning when we didn’t really know about taste and smell. There was a period when I had to ask my chef to taste for me,” she says. “Also, when I did Top Chef, tasting some of the food of the candidates, I had to ask my colleagues, ‘Is it okay?’”
It's estimated that over half of those who get the virus will suffer a temporary or long-term loss of taste and/or smell and Darroze is not the only high-profile chef to have been afflicted. Brazilian Chef Thomas Troigros has described the experience as "really, really weird", while Italian chef Gianni Tarabini has said he could only perceive "bitterness, a taste like salsify" for ten days.
Thankfully, Darroze - who won a long-awaited third Michelin star at her eponymous restaurant at The Connaught hotel in London in January 2021, in the middle of a lockdown - has now recovered. Was it an anti-climax then for the Frenchwoman to achieve her dream in the middle of a pandemic? “I enjoyed it in a different way,” she says diplomatically, “but it was pure joy, probably the happiest moment in my professional life.”
It’s in the Connaught’s award-winning bar that we meet, one morning in late June. It’s the last time she’s going to be in London for a while: for the remainder of the summer, she’ll be concentrating on the opening of her latest restaurant, Villa La Coste, in Provence - her third in France alongside two-Michelin-star Marsan and the more casual Jòia, both in Paris. I’d assumed the whole pandemic would’ve been hugely frustrating for a chef who loves to travel and splits her time between France and the UK. Not so, she says.
“I need to admit something,” she says, almost in a whisper. “It was not so frustrating. It was an opportunity – and I thank God – to stay at home with my daughters. I never did that before. A regular family life: watching TV, reading, listening to music with them. I realised that from now I will take more time with them.”
Darroze plans to delegate a lot more to make this happen and credits the stability of her team for the final push to get the third star, as well as the second at Marsan (the Guide’s announcements came close together, meaning Darroze’s restaurants suddenly had a total of five stars in a matter of days). She’s acutely aware of the staffing issues facing the industry currently, with many of the word’s top restaurants struggling to fill positions, and says she is taking steps to ensure her staff are happy and fulfilled, beyond her longstanding request to them not to refer to her as 'Chef', but rather 'Hélène'. They affectionately now call her 'Maman'.
“It’s all about creating an environment to stabilise staff, to develop them and make them feel they are part of a family,” she says. “I want to think about how to reduce the hours a little bit, create good working conditions. Let’s create interesting things: perhaps one day a month we ask a masseur to come for the entire day and they can go one-by-one and relax, even during the mise en place.”
One thing she is sure about is that the industry has no choice but to change now – new business models, better working conditions, and a greater focus on sustainability. “I’m the first to say I was wrong. I used to buy my caviar in China because it was to my taste. But you can also find good caviar in France and you support local industry,” she says.
I’m curious then as to what she makes of Daniel Humm’s decision to take Eleven Madison Park completely plant-based? Recent reports suggest it’s paid off, with the waiting list for the former World’s Best Restaurant at some 50,000 strong. Is it something she would consider doing?
“I don’t think so. I’m not so extreme, even if I take pleasure in eating more and more vegetables. I spoke with Daniel about what he’s doing and I really think it’s admirable and very challenging because for me to not cook with eggs or a little bit of butter or cream is very challenging. I’m in a hurry to go back to New York to have the experience.”
As our conversation rolls on we briefly discuss her mentor Alain Ducasse’s parting of ways with the Hôtel Plaza Athénée after 21 years – “I don’t understand why the Plaza wants to lose this philosophy and approach, which for me, is unique in Paris,” she says. Originally, Darroze worked mainly in the office of Ducasse’s Le Louis XV restaurant in Monaco before he spotted her talent and brought her permanently into the kitchen. She eventually left to run her family’s restaurant in Villeneuve-de-Marsan in southwest France.
Since then, of course, she’s won a plethora of accolades, including being made a member of the French Legion of Honour and, in 2015, winning the title of World’s Best Female Chef at The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Does she think much has changed for women in the industry in the six years since?
Photo: Jérôme Galland
“Things are changing, but in a very slow way,” she says. ‘The biggest change has come from the point of view of external people: male chefs and the public. They realised that there is a place for women in the industry. What for me has to change more and more is the vision women have of themselves. It’s possible to have children, to have a family life, etc. doing this job. Unfortunately, women are not convinced of that: a little more and more, but not enough.”
As we wrap up, with Darroze on her way to get ready for lunch service, I ask whether she envisages opening another place in the UK, outside London perhaps? But the lingering effects of Covid mean she still gets very tired and wants to cut down on travelling if anything, plus she wants to spend more time with her daughters. “Paris, London, Provence, it’s already a lot,” she says.
