{"id":86084,"date":"2023-03-07T16:49:44","date_gmt":"2023-03-07T16:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star"},"modified":"2023-03-07T17:18:20","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T17:18:20","slug":"self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star","title":{"rendered":"Self taught Beninese chef Georgiana Viou awarded Michelin Guide star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Kenya. <\/strong><\/span>If your secret wish is to get a reward, not just family compliments, for your talents in the kitchen, then Georgiana Viou might serve as inspiration.<\/b><\/p>\n

The self-taught chef from the west African country of Benin, who came to Paris dreaming of becoming an interpreter, was awarded a star on Monday by the Michelin Guide, the bible of gastronomy, for her cuisine at \u201cRouge,\u201d a restaurant in the southwestern French city of Nimes.<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t alone. A chef who studied literature, David Degoursy, and pastry chef Jeanne Satori, with a degree in sustainable development, also won a star for their restaurant de:ja in Strasbourg, eastern France, where the annual awards ceremony was held.<\/p>\n

Michelin\u2019s 2023 awards for French chefs put the accent on the regions of France, not Paris. The only chef to walk away with three stars \u2014 the highest award, reserved for gastronomic luminaries \u2014 was Alexandre Couillon for his creations at La Marine, his restaurant on the tip of the Ile de Noirmoutier on the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n

Of the 44 new Michelin stars handed out, Viou’s is the only one won by a woman working single-handed. Several other women were honored as part of a team, like Satori, the pastry chef at de:ja.<\/p>\n

Viou, 45, has described her cuisine as a mix of French Mediterranean perfumed with notes recalling her home country. She has written several books about Benin’s cooking.<\/p>\n

Becoming a chef was a fall-back plan for Viou, who came to France in 1999 to study languages at the Sorbonne, hoping to become an interpreter. Working at a communications agency in the southern port city of Marseille, life\u2019s complications forced her to change directions and, at 33, her second passion, cooking, took over.<\/p>\n

In an interview last fall with online publication terrafemina, she said that as a Black African woman who was older than most chefs-in-training in a mostly masculine universe her maturity helped her cope.<\/p>\n

But she dislikes being categorized because of her sex or skin color, saying that \u201cit\u2019s completely ridiculous\u201d to be considered \u201ca la mode\u201d for being a Black female chef. She wants to be judged for what\u2019s on the plate she serves.<\/p>\n

Viou learned to cook from her mother who had a simple little restaurant in Cotonou, Benin and got a lesson in perseverance from her grandmother. She worked her way up the chef\u2019s ladder step by step in Marseille, eventually getting recognition at restaurants bearing her name. She joined Rouge, in Nimes, at its inception in June 2021.<\/p>\n

Last year, Viou was on the jury of the popular TV show MasterChef, years after being a candidate.<\/p>\n

Viou’s Michelin star was bestowed for her \u201csingular cuisine … celebrating her Mediterranean environment and Benin roots.”<\/p>\n

\u201cToday is really top,\u201d she said at the awards ceremony, adding that she had been invited and thought, \u201cThis is cool. I\u2019ll find myself among lots of chefs, an occasion for encounters,\u201d not for the bestowal of a star.<\/p>\n

She was clearly overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

At Rouge (Red), \u201cWe\u2019re not a team. We\u2019re a family,\u201d she said, her voice trembling and her eyes welling with happy tears. She then shyly took a few dance steps and raised her arms as if in thanks.<\/p>\n

Self-taught chefs with Michelin stars are less rare than one might think.<\/p>\n

There is Eric Girardin, for instance, at La Maison des Tetes in Colmar, near Strasbourg, who began his working life as an electrical engineer.<\/p>\n

The only woman to have won three Michelin stars is Anne-Sophie Pic. The grand-daughter and daughter of chefs, she moved from her native Drome region to Paris to study commerce before returning to her roots. With restaurants in Paris, London and Lausanne, Pic opened another in Singapore in 2019.\/\/<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Kenya<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Kenya. If your secret wish is to get a reward, not just family compliments, for your talents in the kitchen, then Georgiana Viou might serve as inspiration. The self-taught chef from the west African country of Benin, who came to Paris dreaming of becoming an interpreter, was awarded a star on Monday by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":86083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[6857,7003,9206,8903,9208,823,9205,544,9207],"class_list":["post-86084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-kenya","tag-awards","tag-benin","tag-cooking","tag-france","tag-gastronomy","tag-kenya","tag-michelin-guide"],"yoast_head":"\nSelf taught Beninese chef Georgiana Viou awarded Michelin Guide star - kenya<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If your secret wish is to get a reward, not just family compliments, for your talents in the kitchen, then Georgiana ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Self taught Beninese chef Georgiana Viou awarded Michelin Guide star\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If your secret wish is to get a reward, not just family compliments, for your talents in the kitchen, then Georgiana ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"kenya\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-07T16:49:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-07T17:18:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sites\/28\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1678195191.56.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"538\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Self taught Beninese chef Georgiana Viou awarded Michelin Guide star\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-07T16:49:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-07T17:18:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star\"},\"wordCount\":645,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sites\/28\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1678195191.56.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Kenya\",\"Awards\",\"Benin\",\"Cooking\",\"France\",\"Gastronomy\",\"Kenya\",\"Michelin Guide\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"miscellaneous\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/self-taught-beninese-chef-georgiana-viou-awarded-michelin-guide-star\",\"name\":\"Self taught Beninese chef Georgiana Viou awarded Michelin Guide star - 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