If you’re not already familiar with the delicious cuisine of Chef Sarah Chougnet Studel at Regain, now’s the time to go and discover it in the Camas district! After a classic course at cookery school in Paris, and several trips, notably to Singapore (where she lived for 8 months), then to London where she worked for the famous Chefs Hélène Darroze and Anne-Sophie Pic, Sarah decided to open her first restaurant in Marseille. ‘I felt that there was a lot going on in this city, that there was a particular energy in the gastronomic world’. The most important thing at Regain is the produce, ‘all of which comes from Marseille or nearby like Arles or Aix-en-Provence. All the meat is sourced by someone in Frontignan (La Boucherie Viande Éthique) who works directly with the farmers. The dishes and menus are based on the products we source, so they change several times a week! We respect the work of the producers and try not to distort the product. Some customers also say that my cooking is quite spicy, an influence from my experience in Singapore no doubt!‘
Today, the catering industry is beginning to see its shortcomings and to move in the right direction, particularly with regard to sexism and working conditions. Is a revolution underway? ‘Today things are moving in the right direction, there are more and more women in positions of responsibility, which wasn’t the case before. What’s also good is that people are coming into the gastronomy industry to retrain, they know what the world of work is like and they know how to say no. There are more and more women coming into the industry. There are more and more initiatives, and in particular I’m taking part with the ‘Bondir.e’ association in talks with young people, at the Bonneveine hotel school for example, to raise their awareness of harassment in the workplace and teach them that it’s not normal or legal, whatever the environment. In Marseilles today, we’re seeing a big increase in the number of restaurants, grocery shops and cafés opened by women, so what does it mean to be a woman chef in Marseilles in 2023? ‘It’s pretty crazy, in this city I wasn’t aware of it but it’s a city where there are a lot of women chefs who own restaurants. There’s a real community! Most of the CVs I receive for the restaurant are from women, and in fact my team is 100% female. I think we’re very well represented in Marseille and we need to keep it that way – we’ve got a great dynamic!‘