French chef Hadrien Villedieu’s culinary journey and travels have influenced his first restaurant, Chez Wam, where simplicity reigns over a blend of global flavours
It may come as a surprise to many that Hadrien Villedieu, a French chef with a wide range of culinary experiences under his belt, was not even interested in cooking before a class during his MBA changed everything.
“I was never interested in cooking or culinary arts. I always tell that story and people don’t believe me.” Adding that he had a complicated relationship with food when he was young, he revealed that it was during his MBA in hospitality and tourism when something clicked. “The last class of the year was a cooking class. The chef asked me, ‘How many years have you been cooking? You have good skills.’ I thought he was making fun of me. But I told him it was the first time I’d touched a saucepan, and he said to me, ‘You have something, you should pursue it.’”
That kernel of an idea stayed in Hadrien’s mind, who eventually left the MBA and went to culinary school. “When I told my mom I want to be a chef, she literally laughed for an hour, I think.” He pauses and says, “I like food. My mother cooks well. My grandmother was a great cook. But there was a revelation when I started cooking. There was healing in my relationship with food.”
Since then, he hasn’t looked back. He’s had work experience with the likes of Joel Robuchon and Alain Passard, headed up Ksar Char-Bagh at the age of 24 in Marrakech, Morocco, became an instructor at Top Chef Cooking Studio in Dubai, then flexed his skills at experiential concept INKED in Alserkal Avenue. And now, finally, a restaurant of his own, Chez Wam.
Chez Wam opened within St. Regis Gardens on Palm Jumeirah under the RIKAS Group umbrella – joining the likes of Tagomago, Mimi Kakushi, Twiggy and La Cantine Du Faubourg – just over a year ago.
‘Chez’ means home in French. But what was ‘Wam’? Hadrien says, “Chez Wam means ‘chez moi’ in slang. To say that means, ‘come to my place’.” He continues, “I’m a French chef doing modern food. Which doesn’t mean anything, so that’s why you have to come and experience it. It’s not a French restaurant, it’s not a Japanese restaurant, it’s not an Italian restaurant. It’s a restaurant where a chef does whatever he feels like, but in a good way.”
In May this year, chef Hadrien launched an 11-course experimental chef’s table menu, where diners sit at a counter overlooking the action in the kitchen. With only one seating once a week, the menu is fully illustrated by Myriam Calvo, similar to a ‘carnet de voyage’ – a travel plan.
The chef is very keen to emphasise that his cuisine is not fine dining, rather it’s “fun dining”. Dishes cannot quite be pinned down to a particular cuisine; rather, it’s an amalgamation of his experiences and travels around the world. Case in point, you’re likely to find foie gras bao with plum sauce and poulet adobo with pearl couscous. It might therefore seem surprising that when Hadrien first arrived in the Middle East in 2012, his social nom de plume was ‘junk food man’. “I used to eat only junk food for breakfast, lunch, dinner. People said, you’re doing fine dining, but you’re eating junk food. It was gimmicky and funny, so I kept it.” Changing his social profiles back to his real name was the chef not wanting to confuse any diners making their way to his new restaurant. But even so, he adds, with a twinkle in his eye, there’s still dishes on the menu that feed into his love for ‘junk’ food – from the fried Camembert to the Wagyu cheeseburger.
Hadrien uses local products as much as possible, from Sidr Hatta honey through to Dibba Bay oysters, and local fruits and vegetables such as mushrooms and tomatoes. All he wants, he says, is to have the best possible ingredient for the dish, which means the menu also features the likes of nectarines from France and goat’s cheese from Australia.
The Chez Wam co-owner also teases upcoming collaborations between Chez Wam and chefs from the UAE and internationally and says there are six already confirmed up to mid-2025. So it sounds like he’s extremely busy, even though he says he has more than “two million ideas” for more restaurants in his mind. He notes, “Chez Wam is already a great example of what I wanted. I am a chef who has skills to do ‘me’ – which is good and bad. What’s good is like I do it properly, but what’s bad is like I’m not too wide-ranging.” He candidly adds, “So I’m not the kind of chef a business owner will come to and say, ‘he will open 20 restaurants.’ That’s not my style.”
What he does want to do is focus on Chez Wam. And it shows with the restaurant having won awards in its first year of opening. Hadrien adds, “I do like simplicity in cooking. I think the new generation should work on that. There is a tendency to have one dish and to put 200 things on it because it’s so cool. But sometimes less is more. And when you go straight to the point, it works.”
