From Japanese origin, Sayaka, started her career as a cook in Canada after studying Environmental Science. She travelled and worked in Australia and Japan and moved to France in 2014, where she worked at Sola*, Verjus, Table*, and then joined the opening of Le Grand Bain in Belleville. Sayaka’s passion for fermentation and naturally leavened bread led her to managing the opening of the sister bakery, Le Petit Grain.

Gil, born in Lisbon, started his career at the age of 16 and worked with celebrated Portuguese chefs and producers. He is passionate about spire fishing and strongly believes in sustainable ingredients. Gil moved to Paris in 2016 and joined Le Grand Bain where he met Sayaka.

After having their first child, they sought for a more balanced life between work and family as chefs and also wanted to work closer to ingredients, and decided to move to Gyé-Sur-Seine in Champagne-Ardenne where they created the project of Le Garde Champêtre, which was awarded the green Michelin star (sustainability award).

Apollonia Poilâne, a 36-year-old baker and entrepreneur, is the third generation to run the eponymous bakery. In 18 years at the head of Poilâne, she has perpetuated her grandfather’s “true taste of bread”, her father’s “retro-innovation”, and developed her own “contemporary by tradition” philosophy. Her convictions, of bread as an essential food to nourish the body and the spirit of the communities, the concern for detail always privileging the quality to the quantity and the wish to preserve a production on a human scale, remind us of the daily luxury of simplicity, human contact and the intelligence of the hand. Apollonia is the author of the Epure editions of “This is not a book to make bread” and of 7 titles from the “ten ways to prepare” collection. Her latest book “Poilâne, the secrets of the world-famous bread bakery” was a great success in the United States when it was published in October 2019 (NYTimes, Vanituy Fair, Vogue or even Forbes). The translation of this work in French under the title “Poilâne: Des grains aux pains” has been available in bookstores and on poilâne.com since November 20, 2020. In December 2020, she will be the first French company manager in participate in MasterClass.com, where she will teach “the art of baking”.

Originally from Kobe, Japan, educated at university, lover of jazz, and a fondness for guitar and trumpet. No cooking school, Masa is self-taught! It all began at the age of twenty as a clerk at Alain Chapel’s restaurant in Kobé. Five years during which Masa made his “classes”. Passionate about French culture, Masa arrived in France in 2006. He joined the cuisine of the restaurant at l’Ami Jean in Paris. Despite the language barrier, Masa is brilliant, everything is going perfectly thanks to the mastery of his technique. He went to Antoine Westermann in Strasbourg, followed in Paris to the restaurant Mon Vieil Ami, Agapé, Septime, Table (Bruno Verjus) and Encore without forgetting a detour in the kitchens of Asador Etxebarri in Spain.

Respect for the product, its profession and the customer are essential values ​​for Masa. To be in contact with the producers to understand the cultivation methods. Go to the source of the product to better reveal it. A commitment that brings an extra soul to its cuisine.

Luis Miguel Andrade is a Portuguese chef with a Cape Verdean origin. He trained in visual arts and martial arts, and cooking seemed like a natural way to find balance and express his creativity. He went through the kitchens of Thierry Breton, Joel Robuchon and Philip Chronopoulos. Currently, he is the chef of the restaurant Clown Bar in Paris.

Chef Harry Cummins and sommelier Laura Vidal are the creators behind the initiative of The Paris Pop-Up. The pair met at Frenchie restaurant in Paris where Harry was head chef. Back in 2012, pop-ups had yet to take off in the City of Lights; the couple would use their weekends off to cook in friends’ restaurants that were typically closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

In 2014, the duo began hosting longer pop-up stints and takeovers at restaurants. Together and with another partner, Julia Mitton, the trio officially started The Paris Pop-Up. Later on, they opened Le Chardon, a restaurant in the south of France that runs a chef-in-residence program.

Their menus are always product-driven. Not one menu they have created is ever the same, and they take inspiration from their travels. They do research on the country they’re going to. In Singapore, for instance, they went to all the wet markets, tried samples of local farms’ products and went to Edible Garden City. So they use a local ingredient and cook it in a different way—like the local chye poh flatbread. The entrance to the door of any culture is through food and language.

Shortly before her 30th birthday, Nadia, from a family of gourmets, went through an ordeal. She spent two years bedridden with excruciating pain in her stomach. Finally, doctors diagnosed a disease that was poorly understood when she was born: “celiac disease”, caused by an allergy to gluten and lactose. Nadia Sammut, passionate about cooking but also by chemistry, transformed this desease into an asset: in the heart of The Luberon, alongside with her mother Reine, a Michelin star restaurant for twenty-two years. She embarked on a culinary revolution by inventing a gluten-free gourmet cuisine. Her kitchen became a lab where she experiments with new flours since wheat is banned: rice, peas, chestnuts, quinoa, etc. At the same time, she crisscrossed the south of France to find small producers capable of providing her with impeccable raw materials.

Keeping the spirit of her mother, Nadia has taken up the torch of Auberge La Fenière in Cadenet, where she shares her gluten-free cuisine.

Marco Baccanelli and Francesca Barreca, born in 1981, have a solid training in great Italian traditional restaurants. In 2006 they decided to start their own business and created The Fooders, a project which combines art, music, graphics and food. With this pseudonym they created events, live cooking and art installations. These include Microcucina, cibo/CIBO, City Bites and a unique series of underground dinners. In 2013 they stopped to open Mazzo, a small restaurant with one table, where the high quality of local ingredients became their obsession. With MAZZO they got a great critical success, entering the best food guides in a short time. In 2019 they decided to close the physical headquarters of MAZZO, taking their kitchen and their approach around the world, waiting to reopen in the future.

Sebastian Myers started his apprenticeship in Australia, working with Chef Andrew McConnell. Later on he settled in London and started cooking at some of the best restaurants such as Viajante at the Town Hall Hotel and Chiltern Firehouse Hotel, both with chef Nuno Mendes. Subsequently he ran the kitchen at Sager + Wilde Restaurant and The Laughing Heart Cave. 

Besides this, Sebastian has taken residencies in Paris, cooked at dinner pop ups and most recently at the wine bar, P. Franco in London.

Lucho Martínez grew up in Nashville, Tennessee until he was 14, then returned to his home town Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, where he started his first job in the kitchen.
A few years later, he went to Mexico City, where he worked with various fine dining restaurants in Mexico City, such as Quintonil and Maximo Bistrot.
Later on, he opened his restaurant Emilia, a cuisine that respects the products and seeks to highlight its essential qualities, without intervening excessively.

The Australian Chef caused a sensation in the Parisian culinary scene by going from restaurant Au Passage to opening his bistro, Bones. James now cultivates among the best products in Île de France on his farm and restaurant Le Doyenné.

The goal of the restaurant is to challenge the traditional definition of luxury. “What is luxury? Is it foie gras from 600km away and caviar from Iran? Or is it a bowl of peas that were picked three minutes before they arrived at the table? What this restaurant will provide, I hope, is an experience that you can’t just buy anywhere, and that doesn’t depend on how much money you have.”

Ella from the Yima restaurant in the heart of the Noailles district in Marseille, studied at the famous Paul Bocuse Institute in Lyon, and at the age of 25, she opened YIMA. 

She has worked for prestigious establishments like Septime (Paris) but it is in the Noailles district that she finds perfect harmony with her cuisine. 

Jeffrey Cagnes started working at Maison Stohrer at the age of 16 and this is where he learned all the essentials and the basics that are important for a pastry-maker to grasp.

Two years later, the owners entrusted him with the sous-chef position and later on he became the Pastry Chef. It is a place with a long history – the oldest pastry shop in Paris!

American-Mexican, and with a training in classic French and American cuisine, Robert Mendoza perfected his techniques by working in restaurants like The Willows Inn on Lummi Island and the Catbird headquarters in Nashville. He also trained at Hertog Jan, Belgium and Verjus in Paris. In 2018, Robert opened Le Saint Sébastien in Paris, where he uses traditional French classics by mixing them with his Mexican culture, to tell stories, share cultural ideas in order to bring people together through his cuisine. 

Guillaume Sanchez: “I really think that a chef can help save the world.”

At the age of 12, he decided to quit school and train as a pastry chef. His desire to grow and discover new places took him to Paris, where he honed his skills and was given top jobs at well-known pâtisseries, such as Ladurée and Dalloyau.

Later on, Guillaume Sanchez launched his restaurant, NE / SO and received his first Michelin star. He recently opened NE / SO 2 cocktail bar. 

Half English by her mother, Alexia Duchêne, grew up in a family open to the world and left, from the age of majority, to rub at tables across the Channel (Frenchie Covent Garden and Claridge’s) before returning to France in Chardon , in Arles, then at Passerini, a famous Italian restaurant in eastern Paris, where she officiates as a second, followed by the Top Chef show, before taking charge, at the end of December 2020, of the kitchens of the Datsha Restaurant. Today, she is putting her reputation to good use to publicly question the question of the place of women in her universe and in society, a way to inspire future generations. 

Born in Caen, Romain Tischenko was destined for a career in the kitchen.

After completing his culinary studies in Normandy, he made his debut in Les Landiers and has since passed through Paris, Ze Kitchen Galerie with William Ledeuil and many more special places around the world.

After winning the first season of Top Chef France, he opened Paris’ legendary restaurant Le Galopin, and later it’s little brother La cave à Michel.