Culinary Ambassador
Set to dazzle Members’ taste buds this month, French chef Olivier Oddos discusses his lifelong passion for the kitchen.
Olivier Oddos credits his grandmother for his love of food and cooking. Raised in a small village in France’s famed Bordeaux region, the professional chef can’t help but smile when he pictures that country kitchen.
“From a very young age, I remember working alongside her, chopping herbs and vegetables, learning how to prepare not only chicken, but pigeon and rabbits,” Oddos says. “I was 10 years old when I made my first bechamel sauce. She never went to the supermarket for anything. She only went to her garden or forest for what we needed.”
Oddos apprenticed in his first restaurant kitchen when he was 16 years old before honing his skills further at some of the finest dining establishments in Paris, including the Drouant and Le Meurice.
Those culinary experiences helped him land a position as sous-chef at the famed La Tour d’Argent, a restaurant referenced in literature and frequented by the rich, famous and powerful (US President Franklin D Roosevelt, Marlene Dietrich and Charlie Chaplin all reportedly enjoyed the restaurant’s signature pressed duck).
After a while, though, Oddos became restless. And when an instructor from Le Cordon Bleu, the French culinary institute, visited the Michelin-starred restaurant, Oddos began to contemplate his next step.
“I’d been working for 14 years with no particular goal,” Oddos, now 51, says. “I had just decided to use my skills and travel. When the instructor suggested I teach at their Tokyo school, I thought it was a good opportunity.”
He arrived in the Japanese capital in 2000. While it was a life far removed from the frenetic pace of a restaurant kitchen, Oddos enjoyed sharing his knowledge.
“The students were so excited to learn,” he says of that period at the Tokyo school of Le Cordon Bleu. “It was a very enriching experience.”
But Oddos could resist the inevitable only for so long.
“It was always my dream to open my own restaurant,” he says. “I felt that if I didn’t open a restaurant, I wouldn’t be satisfied with my career as a chef.”
In September 2009, Chez Olivier welcomed its first diners. Located on a quiet backstreet in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward, the cozy restaurant embodies Oddos’ philosophy. The menu changes weekly to reflect subtle changes of season while blending French cuisine with Japanese ingredients. As much as possible, the ingredients are organic and sourced from producers in Japan.
Twelve years and one Michelin star later, Oddos is not resting on his laurels. In honor of his first culinary mentor, he continues to make everything—from butter to sauces to ice cream—from scratch.
“It is the natural way to prepare things and the only way I know,” he says. “I make things that I would serve my own family, which means it must taste good and be of the highest quality. To do anything else would be disrespectful to my customers and my craft.”
Words: Joan Bailey
Fine French Cuisine with Olivier Oddos
June 28 | 6:30–9pm
