At just 41 years of age, Anne-Sophie Pic was recently named world's best female chef by receiving the 2011 Veuve Clicquot Prize during the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards in London. This prize rewards an exceptional female chef whose cuisine is recognised by food critics all over the world. "I want to share this award with my team, our producers, and the clients of my restaurants in Valence and Lausanne, who support me each day", she declared in a press release. The awards ended on 18 April 2011 in London with the naming of the world's best restaurant. 

At the helm of the familial gastronomic restaurant Maison Pic in Valence, at 41 years of age she remains the only woman chef in France to have obtained three Michelin stars. This new prize is further recognition of her talent and another giant leap forward for this outstanding chef who never stops progressing. She also directs the Beau Rivage Palace in Lausanne, Switzerland, which obtained two Michelin stars last year.

Anne-Sophie Pic's cooking: a feminine flavour

If we had to choose just three words to sum up her cooking, they would be respect, taste and simplicity. As her website puts it 'A particularly feminine simplicity that laughs off the quest for perfection and asserts itself with direct flavours'. Her cuisine is more about marrying flavours than technical prowess. The seafood menu proposes shellfish and fish dishes such as freshly-caught John Dory, sea bass and blue lobster… and the great traditions are revisited for meat, poultry and offal: Bresse chicken, veal's sweetbreads (pan roasted and served with carrots from our producers flavoured with lavender), farm pigeon from the Drôme (poached in a slightly smoked stock and served with peas and little beans 'embeurrés' with green anise), 'lièvre à la royale' wild hare (served with delicately spiced potato gnocchi filled with quince marmalade in a red wine sauce)... Anne-Sophie Pic's cuisine combines the rustic, maritime and flavoursome traditions and tastes of southeast France. As a perfect end to the experience the dessert ingredients, such as Ardèche chestnut, and Menton lemon, conjure up the tastes of childhood.

From time to time Anne-Sophie Pic's menus also give a new lease of life to the recipes of her ancestors given that the Maison Pic is over a century old. Four strong personalities have followed on from each other, two women and two men, a real family. A shared history, taste and way of welcoming others with warmth and friendship mark the spirit of the Maison Pic. Three generations, each distinguished by the third star. And today, Anne-Sophie Pic has earned worldwide recognition!