This August 2026 marks eighteen years since I first stepped into a kitchen.
Eighteen years ago, in the middle of August, I walked through the doors of Ferrandi in Paris. I was 17. I had just graduated from Lycée Fénelon (Paris) with a literary baccalaureate, and I knew very little about the culinary world.
Back then, cooking didn’t have the glamour it has today. I had never eaten in a Michelin-starred restaurant. I simply knew that I loved to cook, very simply but with care. And somehow, this world already seemed to bring together so many things I was drawn to: creativity, intensity, authenticity and presence. A world where something almost magical could happen through something as simple and real as food.
Along with writing, cooking was one of the things I loved most at that time. Two worlds where you can create something from almost nothing. A life of creation and inspiration.
In words, as in ingredients, I could already sense something infinite. Stories to tell, emotions to create, things to transform and, above all, an entire life still to invent around them.
Three years of intensive training at Ferrandi laid the first foundations.
Then came the Michelin-starred kitchens in France. Le Bristol – Epicure*** with Chef Éric Frechon, Apicius** with Jean-Pierre Vigato, a summer with Georges Blanc, and Le Neuvième Art** with Christophe Roure.
Those kitchens teach you much more than technique or recipes. They teach you what taste truly is. They teach you the balance of a dish, precision, discipline, endurance and humility. You repeat the same gesture until it becomes right, only to understand that you will probably spend your entire life repeating it, trying to master it a little more.
Then I made a decision that surprised some people around me. I went back to university for a Master’s degree in Culinary Geography at the Sorbonne – Paris.
I wanted to understand this world differently, from another perspective. I missed studying, missed writing and I deeply missed learning in a different way. I was 24, and those next two years were incredibly rich and intense.
But by the end of them, I was missing cooking more than I could have imagined. And somehow, I became a private chef without ever really deciding to become one.
It just happened. I was 26.
I left Paris for the Côte d’Azur, first Saint-Tropez, then Beaulieu-sur-Mer, followed by six months in Monaco. Then, almost overnight, I decided to move to London and stayed there for six years. Some of the most beautiful years of my life !
And throughout those years, I kept travelling around the world with my clients: New York, Miami, the Hamptons, Hawaii, Saint-Barthélemy, the South of France, the French Alps and, of course, Paris.
Twelve years as a private chef, working year-round for wonderful clients.
And then, between 2025 and 2026, Japan opened another chapter. Almost four months of culinary immersion, including three months working alongside two sushi chefs.
Japan brought me even closer to what has always touched me most: the beauty of details, delicacy, and that particular kind of perfection that can somehow remain youthful, innocent and full of promise.
It feels strange to realize that eighteen years have already passed, because despite everything I have seen, learned and experienced along the way, I still somehow feel like I am only at the beginning.
Faustine
