Flavoured with flair

After just a few minutes speaking with Hélène Darroze, you get the sense you’re in the presence of a steel magnolia: beneath the lustrous blonde highlights framing delicate, slightly tense features, there are sudden flashes of unshakeable will. There is a no-nonsense, armoured air about her that is a little intimidating. Then she gives a sudden smile—say, when she’s talking about her two adopted Vietnamese daughters or her grandfather—and it’s as unexpected a moment as it is warm and genuine.

And much later, it occurs to you that here is Shirley Conran’s original Superwoman, Nigella Lawson’s multi-tasking Domestic Goddess in the flesh.

At just 43, Darroze already holds three Michelin stars, one at her eponymous restaurant in Paris, and two at the grandly monikered Hélène Darroze at the Connaught in London where she’s also in charge of the hotel’s bar, in-room and private dining menus. To keep things on an even keel, she spends alternate weeks in Paris and London, travelling with her two daughters aged two and four.

“It’s not easy,” she says, “but it’s also not difficult. I have good assistants, so I never worry when I am away.”

Still, you can’t help but think that no career man would ever take on a punishing schedule like this. And then again, there are few chefs in the world who have her culinary pedigree, never mind her career trajectory.

From the July issue of epicure.