Editorâs note: In this recurring profile series, SFGATE food editor Steph Rodriguez sits down with Bay Area chefs and those with deep ties to the restaurant industry at their favorite seedy dives, cozy mom-and-pop spots and beloved family-owned taquerias. Over deliciously cheap bites, âDid You Eat?â offers a new perspective into the lives of the regionâs most talented tastemakers.
Sitting under a pop-up canopy situated in the parking lot of Tacos El Patron in Pleasant Hill, Tarts de Feybesse chef and co-owner Monique Feybesse takes a sturdy slice of pink radish and casually scoops up a cube of lengua from her taco basket like sheâs eating nachos.Â
Between bites of overstuffed tacos and a large serving of ceviche with plump lime-marinated shrimp, she sips from a towering orange melon agua fresca â completely comfortable at her favorite neighborhood taqueria.Â
Tacos El Patron on Monument Boulevard is her go-to spot for a quick and delicious snack between picking up her 5-year-old son, Louis, from school. Itâs also Louisâ preferred quesadilla spot.
âShould we do the cheers taco now?â Feybesse asks, holding a pudgy flour tortilla filled with fried fish. âIâll do this one. It looks massive. Alright! Yeah, cheers! Bon appetit.âÂ
Besides running the classically French-influenced bakery Tarts de Feybesse with her husband Paul in Vallejo, she was also a recent contestant on the 19th season of the long-running Bravo reality television series âTop Chef.âÂ
The latest season of the popular culinary competition, where 15 of the countryâs most decorated chefs compete for the titular honor, as well as $250,000, is set in Houston. Feybesse made it through many of the showâs out-of-the-box cooking challenges, making sticky rice cakes and beef tartare with cured egg yolk, but was ultimately asked to pack her knives by host Padma Lakshmi in the sixth episode.
âI felt so bad being on the show, in a way, because I left my kids. I left my newborn son. He was like 1 years old, and I felt like, âShould I even be here?ââ she said. âTo not speak to them so often was insane. And you can see that I really missed them and that can weigh on you, for sure.â
With âTop Chefâ behind her, Feybesse and her husband, who, between the two of them worked at some of the finest Michelin-starred restaurants from New York to Copenhagen to Paris, are the two-person assembly line at Tarts de Feybesse. For now, the bakery operates out of a commercial kitchen in Vallejo and takes online orders from dedicated customers. But plans to open a retail location in San Francisco are already in the works.
Together, the two see the art of pastry through savory eyes and create intricately decorated French-inspired desserts such as seasonal fruit and fine chocolate tarts that mimic the appearance of caviar, marbled banana cake loaves with roasted banana caramel and chocolate crunch, black sesame financiers and perfectly piped eclairs with a variety of silky pastry creams, including coconut, grapefruit and tiramisu.Â
âPaul is straight-up production, and heâs a machine. Heâs just as precise as a robot. Thatâs why all the stuff you see online is pretty much how it looks in real life,â she said. âThatâs the beauty of Tarts de Feybesse, is itâs beautiful and itâs gorgeous and itâs delicious, and we want to keep that. Thatâs the spirit.â
âI need to just jumpâ
While other seniors were graduating high school and planning what four-year universities they would attend in the fall, Feybesse finished early at age 17, going off to culinary school in 2006 at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.
From there, she worked all over the Bay Area, including at Madera in Menlo Park, a one-star Michelin restaurant that earned the coveted rank within its first year of opening. Then, Feybesse worked as a sous chef for Masaâs, a legendary French fine dining establishment in San Francisco and one of the cityâs last white tablecloth restaurants. Its super-refined ambiance was led by renowned chef Gregory Short, perhaps best known as one of the first sous chefs of The French Laundry under Thomas Keller.Â
âI was the sous chef at Masaâs in San Francisco until its closure, and that kind of led me to Europe,â Feybesse said. âWhen that closed, I was like, âOK, what do I want to do? I need to just jump.â So I booked a one-way ticket to Geranium, to Copenhagen, and I was like, âOK, I need to get a job.ââÂ
Determined as ever even after Masaâs closure, Feybesse took a one-way flight to Copenhagen in 2013. Not interested in a stage or internship, she ended up landing the job she craved at the seminal Scandinavian restaurant Geranium under chef-owner Rasmus Kofoed, who, in 2016, was the first chef in Denmark to earn three Michelin stars.
âI only wanted one place. I was super driven for that restaurant. I was in love with the food. I was in love with the story. I was in love with the chef. I met my husband there â that was later on, but it was just an incredible place to be,â Feybesse said. âAt one point, we had 16 different nationalities in the kitchen working there. It was incredible, just the whole family situation. I loved being there. If my visa didnât run out, Iâd probably still be there honestly.â
Geranium is where Feybesseâs love for cooking evolved, challenging her to dig deep during those 16-hour days in the kitchen. She lived for the rush and the indescribable feeling of accomplishment after each dinner service. Plus, a budding romance between her and Paul only added to the magic she experienced in Copenhagen. But it didnât last.Â
With an expired visa, Feybesse was forced to jump yet again. This time, it was a one-way ticket to New York, where she accepted a position at Atera, another Michelin-garnering restaurant, then under the direction of chef Matthew Lightner.Â
âItâs rare to meet someone in the kitchen so driven and so committed to execution, but also approach the work with such grace and humility,â said Lightner, who is now the chef and partner at Okta, a restaurant slated to open in August just south of Portland, Oregon. âHer attitude is built on positivity, which touched and inspired everyone she worked with.â
Her commitment to the chef profession and truly radiant personality are just two qualities that intrigued Paul about his future wife. When she left Geranium in Copenhagen for New York, Paul, who is from the Lozere region of France, decided it was his time to jump.Â
âShe started in New York, and I said, âFâk it. I love her.â I asked for two weeksâ vacation to my chef in Denmark. I basically took a flight and asked her hand, and we got married in New York three days after,â Paul said. âWhen I came back, I was in trouble with my chef, and he was like, âWhere have you been?â because I took two more weeks of vacation to enjoy New York.âÂ
A sweet opportunityÂ
Now inseparable, the chefs eventually jetted to Paris in 2015, helping friend and chef Atsushi Tanaka open restaurant AT and also working for Paulâs mentor, six-star Michelin chef Yannick AllĂŠno, at Ledoyen, located on the Avenue des Champs-ĂlysĂŠes.Â
A year later, when Feybesse was pregnant with her first son, Louis, Tarts de Feybesse started with its signature apple tart, a much sought-after customer favorite created in the coupleâs home kitchen in Vallejo when they moved back to the U.S. in 2016. After she gave birth to Louis, Feybesse suddenly had to figure out how to balance motherhood with her passion for cooking.
âWhen I first had Louis, it took me about six months to get back into the restaurant. I was always that worker who would fly to places and just work. Work 16-hour days? No problem. Holidays? No problem. Iâll do it all,â she said. âWhen I had my child, that changed in a way. Can I work 16 hours a day? No. Do I need to lose myself and what I love, or not? Thatâs the choice. I love being a mom, but where do I go from here?â
She became chef de cuisine at Cavallo Pointâs fine dining restaurant in Sausalito, a place where she learned to balance family life with what she loved doing â making delicious food. At Cavallo Point, Feybesse was in her element, running tasting menus and dinner service every night while her husband worked in the city for chef Corey Lee of Benu.Â
In 2020, as restaurants navigated the brunt of the pandemic, Paul found himself furloughed, as many chefs did, while Feybesse was on maternity leave caring for their newborn son, Yann. But a sweet opportunity was bubbling beneath the surface.
The two relaunched Tarts de Feybesse in 2020, baking fresh loaves of sourdough bread for neighbors for $8 each as grocery stores ran bare. Then, the addition of their hand-sliced apple rose tart changed everything.
âFrom there, we just launched a whole menu because thatâs what people wanted. People were driving from San Jose all the way here; people were driving all the way from Sacramento all the way here just to pick up,â she said. âIt was super fluid. It made sense. From the beginning, we said weâll just ride the wave and see where it goes. If it dies down, it dies down. But if it keeps growing, why would we not?â
With the success of Tarts de Feybesseâs online orders, the couple decided it was time to leave their restaurant jobs and pour all of their energy into the bakery. Now, the two split their time between raising their sons, with baby No. 3 on the way, and running the business.Â
âI love it. Itâs really immersive for my family. My 5-year-old loves food. He eats everything, but theyâre always surrounded by food, and thatâs what makes it really special for me at this point, is that Iâm showing them an example of working really hard for what we love,â she said. âIâm really thankful that my husband and I can run pop-ups and still have that same vibe, the same kind of food that we do love and still bring the passion, but in a toned-down way.â
Eventually, the two would like to operate a restaurant group with a Tarts de Feybesse retail location, a fine dining restaurant and a casual-style bistro all serving the delicious French-inspired dishes they learned to cook together in the worldâs most prestigious kitchens.Â
Feybesseâs culinary dreams are vast, but as she snaps off a piece of toasted corn tortilla and scoops up one last bite of zesty ceviche from Tacos El Patron, she says sheâs willing to jump again to show her sons just how brave mommy can be with the support of her family and a love that followed her from Paris back to the Bay Area.Â
âMy husband loves to create, and so do I,â she said. âThatâs what makes it still exciting for us. The dream is big. Weâre working 24/7 on our dream, and thatâs whatâs really special because we never stop moving ever, ever. Itâs really rare.â
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/Bay-Area-Top-Chef-interview-17062078.php