While it's true that the youngest-ever three-star chef remains our own Massimiliano Alajmo, an acclaimed prodigy at just 28, it had never happened before that three stars were awarded all at once to a thirty-five-year-old chef. Enter Fabien Ferré, the chef at La Table du Castellet in Provence.
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Three stars, as we know, are the propeller into legend. Imagine if, as rarely happens, they all light up at once. It has happened only a few times in the history of the red guide, and only once with a chef so young: while Fabien Ferré, the thirty-five-year-old chef of La Table du Castellet, isn't the youngest to have conquered the coveted prize, the coincidence of these extremely rare conditions stuns and suggests a predestined fate.
"I'm not good at speaking, but I'm a little better at cooking," he joked, holding back tears during the award ceremony, as reported by Business Insider. "Could I ever have imagined standing on this stage with the most prestigious prize?"
Ferré comes from a family of culinary artists: his parents were pastry chefs in Burgundy. He entered the profession through the front door, as sous-chef at Maison Troisgros in 2010, at just twenty-one. After three years, he moved to La Table du Castellet, the restaurant of a five-star hotel in Provence, where he honed his style. Three years as sous-chef to Christophe Bacquié, his mentor and fellow three-star chef in 2018, he was promoted to chef and in February 2023 to executive chef.
And it was then that what seems like a miracle happened, given the chef's presence on site for about a decade. La Table du Castellet thus becomes, at least for the moment, one of the most affordable three-star restaurants in France, as a 4-course menu costs 160 euros, and a 6-course menu 210 euros.
The French media rejoiced with their usual chauvinism, dubbing Ferré the youngest-ever three-star chef. But the archives tell a different story: the record, or rather that record, remains firmly in the hands of Massimiliano Alajmo, who reached the pinnacle at just 28 years old.
