There was no shortage of doors slammed in her face before Julia Sedefjian's consecration as France's youngest Michelin-starred chef. Today, the girl demurs, “It's cooking that make you mature quickly, provided someone trusts young people.”
The chef
Born in 1995, Julia Sedefdjian was 21 years old when her first Michelin star rained down on her head, after seven months as chef at the head of Les Fables de La Fontaine. And her record (snatched from Ludovic Turca, a former Top Chef star older by five years) remains unbeaten now that she heads the Paris restaurant Baieta, also awarded a Michelin star. When she first received the award, she learned about it through a bouquet of flowers delivered to her by restaurant manager David Bottreau, and it was a thrill that still gives her goosebumps.
However, her journey, recounted by foodandsens.com, had not been a walk on rose petals until that magical day. Originally from Nice, she had been rejected by a chef in the city, which does not hire women on staff. After all, it is known, haute cuisine remains a highly male-dominated universe, with the other side of the spectrum covering just 3 percent of fine dining. A woman, Julia says, is asked to make a heavier sacrifice, but the example of Anne-Sophie Pic, France's only three-starred chef, shows that anything is possible.
On the strength of a double qualification, for cooking and pastry, as well as a gold medal winner in France's best apprentice competition, it was as commis that she joined the restaurant Les Fables de La Fontaine, of which she became chef three years later, and quickly after Michelin starred. A fast-moving career that shows no signs of slowing down.
When someone points out her age, however, the young cook dodges: it is cooking that makes one mature quickly, so that one does not even realize that time is passing. On one condition, however, she strongly emphasizes: that there is someone to allow it, through a relationship of trust. This is also why his own team is very young and willingly accepts being led by a girl.
On the table, Julia's offerings are characterized by frequent inspiration from her Armenian origins, which she loves to share with staff and guests. As signature dishes the local aioli with small seasonal vegetables, squid and squash cannelloni, and sea bream with shellfish and green curry emulsion. All designed to be sold at a friendly price, in order to widen the audience as much as possible, and sometimes created by extemporaneous inspiration, without ever departing from the two guiding principles of rigor and passion.
