{"id":2528,"date":"2012-08-13T10:38:53","date_gmt":"2012-08-13T09:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/wp\/?p=2528"},"modified":"2018-03-20T11:22:05","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T11:22:05","slug":"chef-josiane-diaga-french-horn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/chef-josiane-diaga-french-horn\/","title":{"rendered":"Chef Josiane Diaga at The French Horn – interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

The French Horn is iconic, quintessentially English and has a celebrated restaurant. The chef has an equally enviable reputation but she isn\u2019t English. This is, after all the \u2018French\u2019 Horn.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"French The owner is Michael Emmanuel and he knows what makes a good chef. \u201cWe\u2019ve always been about good food cooked well and delivered properly. I\u2019ve had just three chefs in 24 years. The first one I inherited from my parents, he stayed with me for five years and he was with the family for 20; I then employed Gilles Company, and he was with me for 18 years. Chef Josiane Diaga is a wonderful lady who was my second chef. She went away to work in America as head chef, and when she came back to the UK I immediately asked her back as my number two, because I needed two strong characters in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

\u201cGilles was offered a professorship at the Cordon Bleu school in London, and that gave me the opportunity to refresh. We interviewed many great chefs and I was pleased to say to Josiane that she was the best candidate. She is taking us in a different direction, and keeps raising the bar, pushing the envelope. It\u2019s about quality and it\u2019s about the customer.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been an easy transition for this chef, who has always been comfortable in this kitchen. She hasn\u2019t come in as an unknown element: she has been tried and tested by The French Horn and it\u2019s evidently a relationship that works.<\/p>\n

Josiane Diaga has a quick and bright smile but complains that her English isn\u2019t perfect \u2013 she doesn\u2019t realise that a French accent is an asset for a chef and particularly a French one. She was born in Marseille and I asked her about her family. What did they think when she told them she was going to be a chef? \u201cThey didn\u2019t know exactly what a chef was, because they are not part of the profession. I\u2019m from a not particularly prosperous part of Marseille, so to have any kind of job is important. I\u2019ve found the one I want and I\u2019m very pleased!\u201d In fact it\u2019s not just a job for this lady \u2013 she is working with her passion.<\/p>\n

Working at the Waldorf Hotel<\/h4>\n

Did Josiane always have a dream of becoming a chef? \u201cThis is something I really wanted to do. When you start training you don\u2019t know if you are going to like it or not, but from the beginning I absolutely knew I wanted to do that. I went to school in Marseille, because I was born there, then after I got my certificate I started to travel around France. I was very lucky because I worked in Le Casse-Cro\u00fbte in Nice.\u00a0 While I was working there, my chef placed me in Alsace, he even brought me to England to work at the Waldorf Hotel, and then some time in America as well. I first worked at The French Horn in about 1997.<\/p>\n

\"Josiane \u201cWhen I worked in Nice I had met my chef de partie Eddy, who was American, and when he became a chef back in the US he asked me if I would go over there. I moved to the USA and worked in Cape Cod \u2013 it was so nice, I could have stayed over there! Eddy then moved to Snoqualmie, near Seattle, but that didn\u2019t work out and I only stayed there for about a month. I came back to England and worked in Nottingham \u2013 but I always wanted to return to the French Horn!<\/p>\n

Had she considered changing the menu?<\/h4>\n

\u201cI took over from Gilles Company, having been his sous-chef for some time, and when he left and the Emmanuel family asked me to take over I was not sure \u2013 it was such a nice place and I didn\u2019t want to let it down. It was quite scary! But I accepted and now I really enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does Josiane feel about her new position in The French Horn? \u201cI took over at the beginning of the year (2012); I am not cooking any less than I did, I find that I am doing more now, because I have the meat section to look after as well as managing the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked if she had considered changing the menu. \u201cThere are a few things, like the duck which you can see on the rotisserie by the fireplace, which are specialities of the house, and we can\u2019t change those, but there are other dishes that we can change. You have to be a bit modern as well. This has always been a really classic restaurant and the customers do like things the way they are, so we can\u2019t change too much, but we can always try to improve, little by little.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the set menu (\u00a316.50 for two courses and \u00a326.50 for three) and what we\u2019re doing is good quality and value for money, everyone can come to eat \u2013 before, it was more expensive. We change every month, and the \u00e0 la carte is seasonal, too. It\u2019s exciting now, being in charge, I can make my own decisions, and I can\u2019t say it isn\u2019t thrilling! I have a good team, too \u2013 we are six normally in the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n

I really enjoy preparing fish<\/h4>\n

Is there anything that Josiane particularly enjoys cooking? \u201cI am on the meat section, so I have to let the rest of the team work the other stations, but I really enjoy preparing fish \u2013 it\u2019s a more delicate ingredient and looks amazing on the plate, lighter; the meat is \u2018big cuts\u2019 and more robust. Presentation is very important because the first thing you see is the plate, before you taste the food.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Josiane The south of France has its very particular culinary heritage. I asked if Josiane had considered offering guests at The French Horn some of her family recipes. \u201cNo, I want to do \u2018my own things\u2019. I really like sweet and salty \u2013 I like both. As a child my Mum was always cooking because she was not working. Usually kids would eat something sweet as a snack at 4 o\u2019clock, but Mum would have made a cocotte (casserole) the day before and I would eat the \u2018leftovers\u2019, and when I started I couldn\u2019t stop! When I am at home now I love to make something very quick like risotto or pasta, or a steak with potatoes, simple things; anyway, you don\u2019t want to mess up your kitchen!\u201d Josiane laughs.<\/p>\n

Josiane is typical of every good chef: she likes to keep a finger on the culinary pulse. \u201cI like to go to restaurants and take the wine-tasting menu. A favourite restaurant, and it\u2019s traditional as well, is Le Gavroche, I know the ma\u00eetre d\u2019hotel, he\u2019s very nice … at first they didn\u2019t know that I was a chef, I didn\u2019t tell them, I just wanted to enjoy the food! I like to try the dishes that are unfamiliar, I am not a person to always have the same thing.<\/p>\n

I love cooking the light Mediterranean food<\/h4>\n

\u201cMy favourite seasons are Spring and Summer \u2013 they are better than the Winter, because of the sun!\u201d Remember, Josiane does come from the south of France. \u201cI love cooking the light Mediterranean food because I think it\u2019s tastier. I love when you put fresh garlic and onion in the pan and begin to cook it; or when you cut the basil, it smells so good, you\u2019re already hungry!\u201d<\/p>\n

At college, was there a chef you thought was a \u2018master\u2019, someone you wanted to be like, somebody who was your culinary hero? \u201cWhen I was studying I admired Monsieur Dominique le Stanc, from the Negresco in Nice and now at La Merenda. He was so calm, and I don\u2019t know how he did it, I\u2019m not like that! And he was so good with his staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chef Josiane Diaga is modest, and as far as she is concerned it\u2019s all about the food. She takes pride in every plate and that\u2019s why The French Horn is safe in her hands. She oversees one of the most respected traditional restaurants and helps to guarantee its continued success, although she is likely to say she is only part of a team …but what a team!<\/p>\n

The French Horn Hotel
\nSonning-on-Thames
\nBerkshire RG4 6TN
\nPhone: 0118 969 2204 and 0118 944 2210
\nEmail: info@thefrenchhorn.co.uk<\/p>\n

Visit The French Horn here<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read my review of The French Horn here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read my interview with owner Michael Emmanuel here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interview by Chrissie Walker \u00a9 2018<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The French Horn is iconic, quintessentially English and has a celebrated restaurant. The chef has an equally enviable reputation but she isn\u2019t English. This is, after all the \u2018French\u2019 Horn. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,25,12,7,28],"tags":[162,187,561,178,558,559],"class_list":["post-2528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hotels","category-international","category-interviews","category-restaurants","category-uk","tag-celebrity-chefs","tag-hotel","tag-josiane-diaga","tag-restaurant","tag-sonning","tag-the-french-horn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2528"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27309,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528\/revisions\/27309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}