An Interview with Pearl Lam and Stéphanie Le Quellec
In episode three of The Pearl Lam Podcast, renowned international gallerist, Pearl Lam, hears why Michelin star chef, Stéphanie Le Quellec, believes that the hospitality industry should be more welcoming towards women.
In the latest feat of The Pearl Lam Podcast, Pearl Lam (林明珠) and Stéphanie Le Quellec sat in Stéphanie’s two Michelin star restaurant, La Scène, and discussed Stéphanie’s impressive culinary career.
Pearl Lam (林明珠) was clearly impressed with Stéphanie’s achievements, praising her for “all the success of Top Chef and big stardom.”
Pearl Lam added that Stéphanie’s must be an inspiration to young female chefs and chefs-in-training; “there must be many young people who want to become a chef just like you.”
In this episode of The Pearl Lam Podcast, Pearl Lam (林明珠) was quick to point out the struggle that Stéphanie Le Quellec must have faced at the beginning of her career, starting out as woman in an industry which was dominated by men.
Pearl Lam prompted “okay, the hospitality industry and chef industry has very few women leading and being put in charge of the kitchen. Was it very tough for you to fight your way to the top position?”
Stéphanie Le Quellec replied: “yeah, it was not easy. I started when I was 14, it was quite a long time ago and my parents trusted me in this career, and this is in a period where Chefs were not rockstars like they are today. You know, there were less women Chefs than there are today.”
Pearl Lam agreed with Stéphanie, adding “yes, much less.”
Stéphanie continued “when I started my job as a young chef there were not many women. For example, where I started, we were two young ladies out of the 480 people in the kitchen team! Only two women in the team.”
Pearl Lam was shocked at the disproportionate number of women in Stéphanie’s first role as a chef, “that’s not even 10%, wow! Pearl Lam added: how was the competition? Was it very competitive?”
Stéphanie replied: “It was a little bit hard for sure, but when you are sincere and when you work very hard, men are able to see that you have potential and that you have talent. So, after that, they support you.”
Impressed by Stéphanie’s success, Pearl Lam retorted: there must be many young people who want to become a chef, so what is your advice and how could they achieve this?”
Stéphanie’s advice to the young aspiring chefs was “You need absolutely to be passionate; you have to get the fire inside of you. You also have definitely got to work very hard and never give up. Even if you’re very talented, if you don’t have that determination, it’ll be hard. But it’s so beautiful, you know, it’s the most beautiful job.”
But being one of two female chefs did not deter Stéphanie. Pearl Lam prompted “okay let’s go back to talk about your journey to become the top chef.”
Stéphanie told Pearl Lam that she learnt a lot of things because Philippe Legendre was a very famous chef who had three Michelin Stars.”
Pearl again marvelled at Stéphanie’s success. You were 26 years old when you became a sous-chef isn’t a very young age? And especially as a woman sous-chef as well.”
Stéphanie agreed, saying “yeah, so it was a great promotion for me and also a great challenge because becoming a sous-chef in a two Michelin star restaurant helped me to become a chef step by step.”
Written by: The Producer, The Pearl Lam Podcast
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