At the helm of two-star restaurant La Scène in Paris, Stephanie Le Quellec has opened other accessible restaurants in the capital, particularly with her husband, David. Here is his biography.
Stephanie Le Quellec He continues his rise. Chef, now a double star in… Michelin guide For his restaurant the scene In Paris, he prepares to return to the cooking competition that made him known to the general public.
In celebration of the 15th anniversary of its founding, Top chefs It actually expands the jury With two new members: the three-star chef Dominic Cranebut also Stephanie Le Quellec, previous winner of the program. The latter, who in recent seasons we’ve regularly seen challenging the candidates in certain events, will have a place in her own right alongside Hélène Darroze, Philippe Etchebest, Glenn Viel, and Paul Barrett. If the channel has not yet clarified how the brigades will be distributed this year, there is no doubt that the return of Stephanie Le Quellec on Top Chef will already be noticeable!
Biography of Stephanie Le Quellec
For Stephanie Le Quellec, cooking is a no-brainer. As a child, she preferred baking shortbread pies and cakes with her grandmother rather than playing with dolls or clay. His family passed on to him a taste for table pleasures, home-cooked food, sharing, and a love of good produce. At the age of fourteen, on the day the patent results came out, the little girl decided to attend hotel school. “At that time, cooking was less attractive than it is today and I was a woman! But I was lucky because my parents believed in me.”
On the sidelines of her training, training opportunities have been multiplied in traditional homes in the south of France. Once she had her BEP, baccalaureate, BTS hotel and catering in hand, she began her career in 2001 behind the stoves of the famous kitchen. Le Cinque restaurant in Paris. “The 80-man brigade, the military rigor, the search for the second star… I was thrilled. It was a discovery.” She remembers. She learned alongside and met Chef Philippe Legendre, France’s best chef Future husband David Le Quellec During these first years of work. In 2006 she joined Terre Blanche, Four Seasons Resort In a nearby mouse Philip Jordanand also Meilleur Ouvrier de France.
In parallel with her activity as an assistant chef, she participates in cooking competitions, e.g Mujin stars. One evening, her stepfather challenged her to sign up for the second season of the series Top chefsAgainst the champagne box. She thought she wouldn’t be chosen, but she received a phone call from production two weeks later. Chef Philippe Jordan advises him to try the adventure, because “It will save me ten years of my career.” Decide: They participate in Top chefs 2011. “Thanks to this competition, I learned to let go and become more creative and less academic.” Throughout the auditions, she impressed the judging panel of Jean-François Page, Thierry Marx, Ghislaine Al Arabi, Cyril Legnac And Christian Constantand ends up winning the competition. “It was a phase in my learning, just like my other professional experiences.”Emphasizes.
The fame of the show gave him the boost he needed, and Stephanie Le Quellec was appointed head chef of the restaurant at the Parisian hotel in Prince of Wales, the scene, in 2013. This establishment, renovated in 2016 and decorated with two stars, offers an original concept: dishes are prepared in front of customers. She wants to move the lines: “I want Abolishing the sanctity of gastronomy in the palaceMake it friendly, welcoming and less intimidating, without taking away any of its charm, charm and elegance.” Nine months later, the long-awaited reward arrived: La Scène won its first star in the Michelin Guide, which “I welcome a first year filled with all the relevant emotions.”
In addition to her daily work, the young chef, Mother of three childrenreturns to the small screen in 2017 with the show on the M6 My mother cooks better than your mother! In 2023, she returned to Top Chef to become a judge alongside Dominique Crenn, Paul Barrett, Glenn Viel, Hélène Darroze, and Philippe Etchebest.
Where do you find your restaurant?
Instead of opening her own restaurant, as many of the show’s participants did Top chefsStephanie Le Quellec preferred to stay in the palace kitchen. “I think I’m a hotel chef with depth.”she explained. “Kitchen is not just about the art of cooking, there are multiple areas of expression that can all be found in the hotel. I like that very much.”
in Prince of Wales, an establishment open since 1929, ran its team behind a white marble counter, out of a large, open kitchen. This gastronomic offer allowed him to focus on A Simple and delicious cuisine, Without a trick.
In October 2019, it opened its new scene in the heart of the 8th arrondissement of Paris, at 32 Rue Matignon. New adventure. “Opening my own house symbolizes for me a return to my basics, to my initial dream, which was a 14-year-old girl entering hotel school as one enters religion.In January 2020, the award dropped to two Michelin stars.
The chef is also at the top of the establishments mama, It serves family cuisine, and Long live thea space dedicated to seafood, whose chef is none other than a chef husband David Le Quellec;
How do you define your kitchen?
“In life, I am honest, upright, direct, and sometimes brutal. My cooking is like me.” The menus at La Scène are short, efficient and seasonal, explains the chef. Ha Simple and sophisticated kitchen It fits perfectly into the Prince de Galles Hotel, a discreet and elegant establishment. But this result is the result of long-term work, combining the scents of travel and the desire to reproduce strong emotions. “It is the eternal story of Madeleine Proust.”
Typical cook: Jean-François Page. Which she met during her time in Top chefs Stephanie Le Quellec impresses with her culture, techniques, and ability to transfer her knowledge onto the plate. “Kitchen Poets” Pierre Gagnaire And Alain Passard Also serves as an inspiration.
Those that have developed alongside the greatest are grounded in a traditional world. But she likes to break away from her classic rules to develop a character Personal and free cooking. Her secret: not to follow fashion trends, to stay natural. The result: noticeable tastes, concentrated flavors, increasingly abstract dishes, and a lot of fidelity. High quality products, carefully selected, are cooked and roasted, as in the French tradition. For her, “In the face of evidence of taste, you have to have the intelligence to step aside. All that matters is the idea of enjoying yourself.”
What are its symbolic qualities?
It offers exquisite French cuisine and noble seasonal products Classics revisited Likes hurry From milk from the Basque country, farm chicken in two dishes, wild sea bass in a broth with sweet spices, grilled scallops with pistachios and celery cooked on a spit, a saddle of rabbit and gnocchi, poached Landis duck, a lobster soufflé and, finally, a cream or vanilla floating island. “In five leaves.”
Stephanie Le Quellec no longer refrains from the obvious because of this “It’s all been done already.” Hence, its distinctive dishes Young red mullet cooked with fearServed with gnocchi, Spring on the plateA vegetable dish made from peas, or even Sweet bread Available in all forms. As she says herself, her personality shines through in her dishes.
