The Little Paris Kitchen

Rachel Khoo, the 31-year-old cookery writer, TV chef and restaurateur. 

Rachel Khoo has come a long way since she landed in Paris from London six years ago, armed with schoolgirl French and a love of cooking. This charming 31 year old was brought up by an Austrian mother and a Chinese-Malaysian  father in London. It wasn't until she graduated with a degree in art and design from Central Saint Martins and worked for a few years in London as a fashion PR for the clothing chain Thomas Pink ("There were a lot of free shirts -also a lot of ironing") that Khoo realised she wanted food to become her career. In 2006, she moved to Paris with £600 in her pocket and a desire to learn how to cook French pastries. She enrolled in French courses at La Sorbonne, got a job as an au pair with a Parisian family and signed up to Le Cordon Bleu culinary school.

After the patisserie course, Khoo worked in  La Cocotte cook-book store and ran baking workshops – Her "Pimp My Cake" class was a favourite among Parisian fashionistas. But it was when she set up Paris’s smallest restaurant in her 21sq m flat  that Khoo began to really attract attention. "La Petite Cuisine à Paris" had just two gas rings and a micro cooker. It hosted only two diners at a time but quickly became the place where everyone wanted to eat. "I was cooking all these recipes, I lived on my own and I thought: “Why not have friends over for lunch?” "It grew from there" says Khoo. 

When a new lunch date was advertised, people responded in 20 seconds. The tale became the talk of Twitter, then the French, Australian and New York press picked it up. La Petite Cuisine à Paris was a global news story. And now with 3 cookbooks published and another  one on the way she has become a TV star  known for her 50´s style, red lips, and a new take on French cooking. 

I'm definitely not going to miss a single episode of her show and I'm looking forward to try out her recipes:)

Xx Áróra

Images: doitinparis.com/en guardian.co.uk 

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