From a Paris Park Bench to a Michelin Star

Alan Geaam was born to Lebanese parents in Liberia, and the family later returned to Beirut, where his parents had moved during the conflict. He began cooking during his national service in Lebanon, where the colonel of his regiment made him his personal chef.

At 19 he went to Paris with almost nothing and ended up sleeping on the streets. Years later he said he never thought the Michelin guide would take an interest in someone like him, who was self-taught and who had had to sleep in the street at 19. At one point he was living in a park in the city.

He found jobs where he could. By day he worked on construction sites, and at night he delivered pizzas and washed dishes. At one restaurant, where he was washing dishes, the head chef badly cut his hand and had to go to hospital. Geaam took over the kitchen, cooking for 14 tables. When the owner said to him, but you can cook, he answered simply, yes.

He kept cooking, and in 2018, at 43, he won his first Michelin star for his own restaurant, near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. He told AFP that the reason he cooks is to make people happy. His cooking blends his Lebanese roots with French cuisine, and one of his favourites is foie gras glazed with pomegranate molasses, served with a beetroot and pomegranate tartlet.