Personal French Chef Héléa brings over 15 years of culinary experience working in top restaurants in Paris and Northern California to Private Mansions in the greater Houston, TX area.
Offering everything from an intimate dinner for two, the holiday party that will have everyone talking about for the next year, to cooking classes for adults and children, Chef Héléa brings her passion, creativity and honed skill to every unforgettable dish she creates. For Chef Héléa, food is much more than purely sustenance, it is an experience that includes all five senses to be shared with friends and family.
Chef Héléa specializes in French food yet is also well experienced in other European cuisine as well as Mediterranean, Asian, Indian, and American cuisines, all the while bringing people together À la Française. She believes strongly in the Mediterranean method of always using fresh, organic, seasonal ingredients to create healthy menus without sacrificing taste.
Chef Héléa is ServSafe Certified in California and Texas.
Meaning of À LA FRANÇAISE
‘‘A la française’’ means: in or according to the French manner, style, or made in France.
We use this expression in a lot of context but ‘‘A la Française’’ is the terminology for a specific French recipe, such as ‘‘greens beans a la Française’’ specifies to cook the green beans the French way.
À la Française is more than just a saying for Chef Héléa, it is her culinary ethos. She believes strongly in using fresh, locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, just as is done in France.
Experience and Background
Born and raised in world’s culinary epicenter, Paris, France, cuisine has been Chef Héléa’s passion since birth. Throughout her childhood, she would cook for family and friends, and quickly realized her love of bringing people together through culinary experiences. In 2006, she began her studies at Le Gué à Tresmes outside of Paris, where at the end of the intense five-year program in she earned her two diplomas in French Gastronomic Art & Multicultural Gastronomy. During this time, she began her career in the food service industry, first as a waitress and cook, and quickly rose to first Chef de Partie, where she was responsible for large corporate and private events at several 4-star hotels around Paris for over 10 years.
In 2014, Chef Héléa took a year off to learn English and to experience the American lifestyle.
In 2016 she earned a Bachelor Degree in Event Planning and Organization from EPH Paris XIV, a private school in Paris, and permanently moved to the Sacramento California in 2017. It was then that Chef Héléa decided to become a personal chef and share her culinary passion in a more intimate way, and thus started À la Française, who is now implanted in the greater Houston Texas.