Six French women chefs to cook after

They do not run a palace, do not chase the stars... and yet, these six female chefs revolutionize, on their own scale, French gastronomy. Some chose sandwichs or the pizza, others modernize the bistro. Focus.

Anh Dao Nguyen - The bánh mì high precision

In Marseille, Anh Dao Nguyen may have just signed one of the best bánh mì in France. After studying philosophy, political science and art, she turned to cooking and trained at the Ferrandi school. She then earned her stripes in Parisian palaces, traveling around the world. Settled in the Phocean city, she becomes Valentin Raffali’s second at the Livingston (who will make himself known to the general public thanks to the show Top Chef in 2024). Anh Dao Nguyen has since opened Cà Phê Đá with pastry chef Émile Duchemin, who also has a golden resume. In this Vietnamese canteen in the Hôtel-de-Ville district, the sandwich costs less than €10 but gets the attention of a great restaurant: homemade charcuterie, slowly cooked pork belly, chicken liver pâté, pickles and worked sauces.

Céline Serrano - Aubrac without folklore

At 28, Céline Serrano already has an impressive career: Alan Geaam and Copenhague in Paris, Eter in Madrid, then Vue de monde in Melbourne. Since late 2024, she has been managing the kitchens of the Club Casse-Croûte in Montpellier, where she revisits, with Nicolas Moisset, the recipes from her childhood in Aubrac. Farçous, aligot, laguiole or reine-des-prés become the starting point of a lively and contemporary cuisine, sometimes with Spanish influences. She does not modernize a terroir to make it trendy: she broadens it thanks to everything she has learned elsewhere.

Marthe Brejon - Leavened handmade pizza

In Paris, Marthe Brejon defends a rare pizza: a natural leavened dough made of 5 flours and entirely kneaded by hand. After Ferrandi and a turn to Il Carpaccio, the Michelin-starred Italian restaurant at the Royal Monceau, she trained in sourdough and then pizza near Paestum, in Campania, where her family owns a house. We saw her in Parisian restaurants but she now prefers pop-ups, residences and collaborations, carrying with her her ovens and her know-how. In the spring of 2025, she was notably welcomed for several months at the Villa Médicis, where her father had himself worked.

Claire Grumellon - The bistro without nostalgia

With Geffrey Valot, Claire Grumellon had created Le Vaillant, a tiny bistro at the Quai de Valmy in Paris. In a setting reminiscent of a dining room from the 1970s, they put eggs mayonnaise, blood sausage, rillettes, offal, pâtés and dishes with sauces at the center. Their cuisine did not "revisit" the bistro: it simply showed that it could still be generous, funny and contemporary. Le Vaillant has closed, but the duo is now looking for a new place to extend the adventure. A particularly anticipated sequel as their proposal escaped the somewhat mechanical codes of the Parisian neo-Bistrot. You can taste Claire cooks in Lissit, Paris.

Elsa Marie - From the Virgin to the Basque country

In Paris, Elsa Marie had made La Vierge an address that left behind a community of nostalgic customers - Alain Ducasse himself had come and left delighted. She also worked with Septime and Les Pères Populaires, and has since chosen Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where she develops human-scale projects with the Australian chef Julian May. The duo runs a restaurant there, to which has been added a pizzeria. Basque products, guindillas, cecina, stuffed pasta, garden vegetables, roasted poultry or smoked eggplant make up a cuisine that is travelled around, seemingly simple but very precise.

Mina Kandé - Asia without borders

At the Consolat, opened in Marseille in July 2025, Mina Kandé blends Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Cambodian, and Indian cuisines on a foundation of French techniques. Trained in Ferrandi after two years spent in Beijing, then went to Double Dragon in Paris, she composes with her co-cook Wen Wen menus with kimchi and shells rubs mapo tofu and temparas with seasonal vegetables. Her kitchen is as precise as it is economical. Homemade paneer for one of her dishes (red curry with tamarind and grilled cashews) produces a whey that becomes the base of a homemade soda. A way to circulate products, influences and ideas without losing anything in greed.