Gourmandise. Sharing. Simplicity. Tradition. Transmission.
Chef Richard has more than 25 years of experience that has taken him from a traineeship at a 3* Michelin restaurant in France to part-ownership of one of the most important restaurant groups in Cambodia.
Richard’s career has brought him a wide and deep wealth of experience in kitchen and restaurant set-up and management. Driven by a quiet passion and determination to get things right, Richard has honed his skills at the highest levels of cooking and service in two continents.
In France, Cambodia, Singapore, and Indonesia, Richard has created restaurants, served as executive chef, and taken on other roles such as business development and marketing. In short, there are few aspects of setting up and running a restaurant that Richard doesn’t know backwards.
It is part of this passion to share which has driven Richard to reformulate his skills and knowledge to support others in their unique missions to create, cook and serve.
Chef Richard Gillet is the Vice-President of Zone ASIA PACIFIC of Disciples Escoffier International and the Founding Chairman of the Cambodia Delegation.
Contact me today for a no strings chat about your restaurant!
My aspiration is to transmit the good eating habits through simplicity, tradition, gourmandise and sharing!
SIMPLICITY, it is not complicated to make a simple smoked fish salad with freshly baked potatoes. There is nothing better than eating a simple dish.
TRADITION, in the respect of the taste of the products with authenticity, without being refractory to progress, let’s not confuse tradition with immobility.
GOURMANDISE, the passion for good food.
SHARING, there is no such thing as good cuisine if it is not prepared out of friendship.
TRANSMISSION, I have given myself the mission of elaborating and transmitting knowledge, developing research and training people. To put people back at the centre of things, transmission is not a transfer. True transmission is always a reconstruction.
The transmission is not only technical, but also necessary to show the value, the love and the interest of the other.
If we could eat well everywhere it would be great!
Born in France to a hairdresser mother and an engineer father, Chef Richard was never predestined for the kitchen, but that is exactly where his passion took him.
In 1992, Richard was just 16 when he first encountered his own passion for cooking while working with the famous Chef Bernard Loiseau at the renowned Relais Bernard Loiseau, Restaurant La Cote d’Or in Saulieu, France.
He decided to pursue this fascinating career and after five years of study with instructors such as Chef Christophe Quantin (Meilleur Ouvrier de France, 1993), he travelled to Paris and joined the team at Laurent Restaurant under the leadership of Chef Philippe Braun, a disciple of Joel Robuchon.
At the end of 1996, Chef Richard flew to Cambodia to take charge of the kitchen of the French embassy where he stayed for almost 2 years, plenty of time to fall in love with this country.
Along his journey, he met his future founding business partners of Thalias Hospitality Group, today one of Cambodia’s leading hospitality groups with nine restaurant and take-away outlets and one hotel.
In the early days, they started with the opening of l’Epicurean in 1998, Phnom Penh’s first post conflict delicatessen. Next door to l’Epicurean was Topaz, a simple Thai restaurant with a kitchen on the street, which the team slowly developed into a pioneering French fine-dining establishment.
Chef Richard served as Topaz’s Chef de Cuisine for almost ten years, leading the way for French gastronomy in the capital. During this time, he developed a range of additional skills such as butchery, charcuterie, bakery and pastry. It was the latter that the idea for Khéma, a French-style delicatessen and contemporary brasserie, came about in 2014.
Since then, as Culinary Director and Head of Research and Development, Chef Richard has worked in collaboration with many renowned Michelin-starred chefs such as Benoît Vidal, of l’Atelier d’Edmond (2 star restaurant in Paris, France), Christian Têtedoie (1 Star Restaurant, France , Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF), 1996), Serge Granger (MOF, Chocolate, 1993), Philippe Giradon (1 Star Restaurant, France & MOF, 1997), and Guy Lassausaie (1 Star Restaurant & MOF, 1993), among many others.
Even during this busy period, Richard took on other roles, including business development and marketing, as well as overseeing the opening of the Italian concept Bistecca in 2011 in Singapore and in 2012, Moovina, in Jakarta, where he was awarded the 2nd prize for best French gastronomic restaurant. In short, there are few aspects of setting up and running a restaurant that Richard doesn’t know intimately. Over the past two years, his passion has allowed him to practice and hone his skills with Guy Lassausaie in France.
Driven by a quiet passion and determination to get things right, Richard’s wide-ranging career has brought him a remarkable depth and breadth of experience in kitchen and restaurant set-up and management, and he has honed his skills at the highest levels of cooking and service in two continents.
Chef Richard is happiest in the kitchen, where his working style of tenacity and precision finds its greatest expression. His cooking cleaves to a classical French style, but he is also adept at Italian cuisine (because he loves it so much), and like all great French chefs, he believes in the quality of the ingredients above all things.
Richard has always believed in the value of sharing knowledge, skills, passion, and conviviality, which is why he founded the Cambodian Chapter of Disciples D’Escoffier in early 2017 to support the next generation of young chefs in Cambodia and beyond. He is now Vice-President of the Asia-Pacific zone.
It is part of his passion to share which has driven Richard to reformulate his skills and knowledge to support others in their unique missions to create, cook and serve. And that is why he is ready and waiting to help you in your mission today.
Ramón MEDINA
BOULANGERIE DU LEVANT
Baldwin Jehanno
Jika Chocolate
