My husband Chi Wah
selects and buys the tea ingredients for the restaurant.
He goes to China and he picks them.
I always fight with him when he returns home
because he buys too much.
He buys this and that and I say to him...
"What are we going to do with all this?"
But when I traveled with him...
I understood.
We sat down and tried the tea.
It completely turned me upside down.
You end up buying everything!
I don't know if they put a magic potion in the tea!
It drives you crazy, it's fantastic.
You come out of that neighborhood high as a kite.
High as a kite!
Tea-drunk!
Your head is turning, your heart beating like this...
Because tea is very powerful.
It shakes you up.
It's a very hard feeling to reproduce in Paris.
But I wanted to try.
A critic must remain impartial.
He cannot speak. He must write and then disappear.
He becomes one with the decor. He doesn't exist.
I never speak about restaurants, except in the papers.
But this restaurant is...
special.
The difference between this restaurant and any other one,
it's something you can't touch.
But it's a feeling.
What touched me at Adeline Grattard's restaurant...
were the feelings that emanated from her and her husband.
And with her...
I felt a real passion that she put in her food.
This is what we call an auteur's cuisine.
When I go to Yam'Tcha...
you can feel the influence of her story, her children, her life, her experience.
We're in France... but we've got a foot in China.
You got the wonderful French duck.
But the sauce is from Asia, from Szechuan.
Because Asia is part of her culture.
It's really a part of her identity.
Chinese cuisine, it's very, very diversified...
from capital, which is sauce-based,
to Szechuan spicy, Shanghainese...
to Cantonese, which is ingredient-oriented.
Adeline took all the techniques of Chinese cuisine
and she applies that to beautiful French products.
Fish, cheese, chicken, foie gras...
And it gives a new perception of that product,
a new texture, a new taste.
Oftentimes, kitchens can be a little macho.
In these male-dominated kitchens, macho chefs try to engrave their initials
on the bottom of your stomach.
Her cuisine is convivial and a bit feminine,
and it's about giving rather than trying to impress or dominate.
But at the same time, it's not a bland cuisine, nor is it shy.
It's very real.
Her cuisine is her life.
That's why it speaks to us.
What's been happening in Paris over the last ten to 15 years
is a genuine culinary implosion.
The culinary scene is pretty much incomprehensible and unreadable,
which is what makes it fascinating.
Once upon a time, Michelin was a companion to the French culinary scene,
but then it terrorized it with its impossible rules.
But now, Michelin is stuck in the 20th century.
Hierarchy has become totally horizontal now.
So what was born from this is this idea of the individual's taste.
Chefs open their eyes.
They make any cuisine that they feel like.
If Michelin likes it, good.
And if it doesn't, that's okay.
It doesn't matter.
Yam'Tcha was born in that period with its goodness.
And it was just...
This is sucrine, right?
Sucrine, yes.
There are ten.
Before anything, Yam'Tcha is a cuisine driven by love and emotion.
I don't have any written recipes.
I don't write anything down.
I think it's not as spontaneous if you do.
What goes with these turnips?
Foie gras?
Very good.
If the staff gets fixated on the recipes, it freezes things.
They try and be too exact. They don't work with as much heart.
We never weigh the sauces. We always make them instinctively.
It changes all the time.
Since we don't dress the dishes in advance,
each table gets something slightly different.
Each table is an experiment.
If it's all the same, robotic, you won't feel like eating it.
That's not good.
It's a risk, of course, because you can mess up.
But...
I want it to stay alive, I don't want a fixed cuisine.
Let's wait for Nina here.
All right, they are out.
Nina?
Let's go. We need to go fast.
Come on. Go.
- Everything okay, Nina? - Yes.
Exam?
- Have you done it, finally? - Yes, we have done it.
- So? - We have not been given the mark yet.
- Where is Dad now? - At the shop.
Dad!
Say hello!
- How is the stuffing, Laura? - It is fine.
- Is it fine? - Yes.
It remains... There are three boxes of each.
- Tomorrow is the block party. - Yes, tomorrow.
Yam'Tcha is our universe.
We have two businesses.
My husband Chi Wah...
he's at the shop, and I'm at the restaurant.
- This is the new one. - Thank you. Ah!
I first met Chi Wah at a horse riding competition in Normandy.
He invited me to have some cider.
- Can you pick Nina up at 6:15 p.m.? - Yes.
All right, I need to go.
Nina's scooter is in front here. Chi Wah, don't forget it.
I can't bring it back to the restaurant.
Go. Bye.
Something happened on that first day when we met.
That's it.
We talked a lot about food.
He was a guy who went to the market twice a week...
cooked his own food, steamed fish.
That impressed me. It was charming.
Sometimes I have a tendency to be arrogant or pretentious.
Chi Wah brings me back, he cuts my fingers and he keeps my head grounded.
He says, "Remember your origins, remember the source."
I think it's what makes our relationship strong.
When I was young, we lived in the countryside.
I used to pretend I was cooking on TV.
Not really a star, but doing recipes on TV.
I liked to organize herbs, products, on the table.
I have memories of the checkered tablecloth
and the little blue and pink Tupperware containers.
The countryside is where I learned to be gluttonous...
where I learned to eat, to discover flavors from the garden.
Can I take some basil, Dad?
- Yes, yes. - You have a lot of it.
My parents are practically self-reliant.
They only eat produce from their garden.
Back then, we had to pick the cherries.
Every Sunday, we picked the cherries and removed their pits.
Can you see this beautiful light purple?
It was great. A really great time.
Those were the flavors I knew and they were delicious.
Oops!
One day, I went to visit my aunt in London.
She had married a man from Hong Kong.
He introduced me to Chinese cuisine.
Shrimp, shumai, garlic, peppers!
I was overwhelmed.
I loved it.
I developed an affinity for exoticism.
Even though I lived in France...
I was drawn to China.
"Yam'tcha" is a Cantonese word.
It means eating dim sum and drinking tea.
And everyone in Hong Kong does yam'tcha.
It's crazy in Hong Kong.
When we opened Yam'Tcha, it was very difficult
to find a kind of bread that would match my cuisine.
The French baguette was too boring.
So I thought, dim sum.
I decided to make steamed buns instead.
Pure Hong Kong.
We said, "We have to stuff this bao like the Chinese do,
but with French cheese."
It must melt inside a little bit.
And I felt, "That's gonna work."
When I was younger, I used to love to eat ice cream with Amarena cherries.
I loved the chemical taste of cherry. Loved it!
We put it in the bao, too.
It was good.
So I thought, "I have to serve this at the restaurant."
What's inside the bao is the essence of our journey.
It's the story of our lives because it combines France and Hong Kong.
Elsa, start cutting the foie gras for the appetizer.
Do it like this.
You make portions like that. You move quickly or else it melts.
Okay?
After culinary school,
there were choices to make.
Which restaurant to work at...
I had to build my future.
Everybody was talking about Pascal Barbot.
I thought to myself, "I'd like to have a look."
I saw the menu outside.
It was influenced by Japan and Asia.
It grabbed me.
She didn't have a lot of professional experience.
She was very honest about it.
I could tell right away that she never had anything handed to her.
And she was a fighter.
So she came here to work at Astrance.
When I started working with Barbot...
I was a young cook with very little experience.
Barbot completely opened my eyes to a personal interpretation.
At the time, I did everything by the book.
I didn't feel ready to have my own interpretation.
I had to go find something else to be able to express myself.
I knew I needed to travel.
I wanted a little bit of violence.
The fire, the steam, the wok...
I knew that was the style of Chinese cuisine.
So I left.
I left before Chi Wah did
because he still had work to complete in Paris.
So I arrived there alone.
It was really a shock.
It's a city that sticks in your head.
It's a very noisy city.
There's the sound of air conditioning everywhere.
The sound of taxis...
When you cross the street, the light makes a sound.
It's weird. As I tell you about Hong Kong,
I can hear in my head those street sounds...
I can hear it in my head.
I think what shocked me the most was the weather...
the humidity.
It's crazy.
It changed me.
I started to crave food that I hadn't craved before.
I began to understand their interest for soup,
their interest in tofu, dried things.
I began to understand how Chinese people eat.
And then I began to really dig in.
It wasn't just exoticism.
I was deeply understanding
the basics of Chinese cuisine.
Right away, I started cooking.
I was coming out of Astrance feeling really sharp.
But it wasn't a good start.
Integrating with this new team was a challenge.
The Chinese cooks didn't speak a lot of English.
I couldn't lead the team.
I was under a lot of pressure, and it wasn't going well.
I'd come home crying, exhausted, alone.
I called France a lot to talk with Chi Wah...
and he encouraged me to stay a little longer.
Finally, he came to live with me.
He came to act as a translator, and I really started to learn a lot.
He brought me to many restaurants to try Chinese cuisine.
We got to go to pretty exclusive places, like popular dim sum restaurants.
I started to have a better experience.
It was just great.
Her going to China was not surprising.
What was surprising was how motivated she was.
As a cook, as a woman, as someone who doesn't speak Chinese,
she was establishing herself in Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong.
That shows you how determined she was. That's beyond motivation.
It's fiery determination.
I developed a lot then.
I think now I can say in that period I was preparing Yam'Tcha.
When we first started at the old location...
we said, "We serve wine in pairings.
Why not with tea?"
At first, I was always behind.
The dish would get to the table,
and I would bring the tea five minutes late.
I remember people would eat foie gras in two seconds...
while my tea is still infusing.
It was horrible!
When we heat the tea, the moment must be calm.
From the start, we're concerned about what the tea will be.
How can we maintain the tea's character, its flavor, and its taste?
So each infusion requires observation and concentration.
But then you gotta go fast.
Tea of the day. It's an oolong. It comes from Taiwan.
So after a year, we gained some experience...
and we realized it was important
with regards to pleasure, emotions, tastes, dishes.
The presence of the tea is very welcome.
It's to soothe you, to calm your stomach.
It says, "Shh! Now listen.
Everything else is nonsense. It's absurd."
I find that to be very good.
Hello!
Are they new? There are new...
Yes, they are new.
Is that a 30-inch one?
Twenty and a half inches.
- That one? - Yes, 20 inches.
Let's see. Yes, oh, yes.
Putting these on the steamer would be great. To cook the fish!
Yes, we'll do it. We'll buy it.
We need to buy more this morning, in fact.
Okay.
We spent two years in Hong Kong.
It was great.
I got to be with Chi Wah in his home country.
Hello. Hello.
- Is this green tea? - Longjing.
Longjing tea? I see.
We got married in Hong Kong.
We had to get married for visa issues.
We had to, so we did it quickly, in ten minutes, I think.
Then we went back to work.
Hmm.
That was a special time in our lives.
At the time, I was pregnant.
When I was pregnant, my routine didn't change at all.
Every day, I was in the kitchen.
I wanted to be quiet about it.
I hid my pregnancy under my apron.
They thought I gained weight because I stopped smoking.
I was six months pregnant and no one knew it.
Look there. Sea cucumbers.
- Whoa! - Whoa!
I gave birth to my daughter on a fisherman's island with no cars.
Very quiet, very calm, in a small, simple house.
At the time, I just took care of my baby and it was great.
It was the first time
since I'd started cooking professionally that I stopped for a moment.
It was a wonderful time of feminine fulfillment.
It was great.
Magalie told me that she wanted to make fish next week.
Mackerel and all that.
And some dim sum. We should prepare dim sum.
I'll look for someone.
In the kitchen. A new employee.
- Oh, yeah? - I will.
Because when Valérie is at the boutique,
I need to work twice as hard, like when we opened.
At least now we have a good staff.
We came back from Hong Kong in 2008.
I planned to open a restaurant when I came home.
We said we'd have space for 18 to 20 patrons,
and that I would work in the kitchen alone.
My husband said he'd make tea.
If I was going to start the restaurant,
I would have to leave my baby, which I was breast-feeding.
It was hard.
I hope you've had a pleasant journey
and I wish you a good day.
There was a rumor going around that one of Barbot's students was opening.
We started getting reservations right away.
People on the Parisian scene were watching us.
We never envisioned being a part of that circle.
I was very stressed.
I didn't feel ready.
I didn't know what I was going to make.
I was afraid.
It was the unknown.
We opened on March 26 of 2009...
and then our adventure started.
I was on my bike, heading toward the Halles.
I just happened to pass by and I said, "Oh! Someone's cooking!"
And the front of the restaurant looked nice.
So I thought, "My readers will love that.
Finding a hidden gem."
On the first day, a friend and I were smoking outside.
When we saw a man arrive with a camera,
we said, "Shit! It's FranÃ§ois Simon!"
He's one of France's biggest critics.
Adeline saw him and said, "Wow! FranÃ§ois Simon! Go! Go!"
We weren't ready at all.
Everyone flipped out, and I didn't know who FranÃ§ois Simon was.
So I served him tea.
We went inside. I kneeled down in the kitchen.
I think I cried.
What am I going to make?
I was shaking. I was emotional.
I had no idea what I was going to do. I was blocked!
Completely blocked!
When a new restaurant opens, there is fear of the customer.
But we want her to succeed.
And if against all odds, she does, we'll be happy.
But if she messes up, you have to be honest and write about it.
If you say it's not good, Adeline could burn up, all for nothing.
It's very unsettling.
I was the only one in the kitchen.
I didn't know what I was going to cook.
I asked myself, "What could be interesting?"
And I looked inside my head.
And it just started.
Tons of things came to me spontaneously.
I gave what I felt was inside me.
It's the things that I touched, that I liked, that came out.
It was a mixture of all the flavors I loved between France and China.
It gave me tremendous strength.
Enough to lift a mountain!
I found myself. I found what drove me.
For me, it is a cuisine of understanding.
Your body immediately feels it.
You feel like a flower in the sun.
It orients itself towards this type of cooking.
I immediately understood that her cuisine was delicate.
Not a material softness, but a softness of the soul.
That's what I wrote in my first review.
A toast for this week.
Cheers! Cheers!
When we opened Yam'Tcha, everything hit me all at once.
The reviews... It was crazy!
Tons of articles all over the world.
And when we got the star, it was even crazier!
We didn't even realize what was happening to us.
Really, we didn't even realize it.
We thought we'd just opened this small watering hole, this bistro!
I don't know how the stars aligned so well for us,
but it just happened.
The great restaurants aren't that interesting.
Those places have nothing to say.
Nothing to say to your stomach, your heart, your mind,
your loyalty, your love of gastronomy.
There are tons of restaurants like that all over the world.
But Adeline's wasn't like that.
Her food expressed the depth of her heart and her soul.
So for me, that was...
a gem.
Adeline has become a model for a whole new generation
of young French cooks.
Adeline came with her own sensibility,
with her history, her childhood, her life, her trips.
And Adeline constantly revisits those aspects of herself.
She doesn't try to be someone that she's not.
She is a whole person, and that's priceless.
Now I can feel that a cuisine reflects what you have inside of you.
It's an expression of your inner life.
I didn't feel that before.
It's really about giving something from the heart
and giving something from your personality.
It created in me a unity in cuisine that is very personal.
And so what came out is us.
It's a love story...
between France and Hong Kong.
It's the story of our lives.
That's Yam'Tcha.