Go East
Yamt’cha and Chef Adeline Grattard in the City of Love WRITTEN BY: CARY WONG P H O T O G R A P H S P R O V I D E D B Y : C H E F YA M T ’ C H A A N D C H E F A D E L I N E G R AT TA R D
N TROORA MAGAZINE
ot far from The Louvre, Chef Adeline Grattard is in charge of her triptych of businesses in Paris - a tea house, a bistrot (lai’ Tcha), and a flagship Michelin-starred restaurant ( Yamt ’cha) where she ser ves up creative FrancoChinois fare and is one of the most difficult reser vations to get in town.
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Her current success notwithstanding, growing up in Dijon of the Burgundy region, Chef Grattard wanted to become a teacher. When she was studying German in Germany, she got a small job in a kitchen. That was the catalyst for her career change. She took a break from studying when she returned to France and later moved to Paris to work at L’Astrance with Chef Pascal Barbot , amongst other greats. After a three-yearstint , she moved to Hong Kong with her husband, Chi-Wah Chan, to learn more about his home, its cuisine, and culture. There, she worked at the two-
Michelin-starred BO Innovation alongside Chef Alvin Leung. It was a total culture shock . Inside the kitchen, the team’s lower efficiency and language barriers, as well as Chef Leung’s eccentric ideas, made for a difficult culinar y transition. As par t of the team responsible for making dimsums, she had to work early morning shifts. On top of that , Chef Adeline Grattard the couple initially stayed on Hong Kong Island with lots of noise and traffic that she had a tough time getting used to. As time got on, things star ted to get better. Chef Leung was ver y generous in sharing his knowledge of Chinese—par ticularly Cantonese— food. He brought her to different restaurants, and they talked a lot about the food. The education was invaluable. The couple also moved to Peng Chau in the outlying islands for a more peaceful and quieter lifestyle. During that time, they welcomed their first daughter. In 2009 when they returned to Paris, she decided
