Meet the next British culinary star - a former fashion PR who runs one of Paris's most talked-about restaurants.
A new British cookery star is about to born. She is 31-year-old, Croydon-born Rachel Khoo. Her mum’s Austrian and her dad’s Chinese/Malaysian and she now lives in France.
Leaving fashion PR and London behind, Khoo moved to Paris six years ago with just €800 in her bank account. Now her first British TV series The Little Paris Kitchen arrives on our screens this week. She’s also written a book to accompany it.
Here are some fast facts about her career to date:
Learning Le Cordon Bleu
Khoo spent her €800 fulfilling her dream of attending a patisserie course at the legendary Le Cordon Bleu cookery school while she worked as an au-pair. She then worked in cookbook store La Cocotte where she ran a series of baking classes, including a very popular one called Pimp My Cake.
Dinner for two
She opened Paris’s smallest restaurant when she started serving meals in her apartment. Calling the restaurant La Petite Cuisine à Paris (her kitchen is only one metre square), she could only serve two diners a sitting. But the buzz grew and she found herself being covered by the French press. Her reputation then spread internationally.
This isn’t her first book
Such is Khoo’s reputation in France that she has already published two cookbooks over there – one on cereal bars and one on spreads and pastes (mostly of a chocolatey variety).
Her new TV show is ‘real’…
“I’ve done everything but show the audience the contents of my knickers drawer, so it makes you quite vulnerable, but I want people to know this is my real life.”
You can catch The Little Paris Kitchen on BBC2 on Monday nights at 8.30pm or catch up via the BBC iPlayer. Let us know what you think of it in the Comments section.
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