The toque fits this lady just fine

Her passions for food and good management come together-collide really-as her kitchens test the seasoning in every dish.

"It's very important, like a balance for the cuisine," as she puts it, but it generates a lot of waste.

A little plastic spoon will be thrown away after every tasting, and every day about 200 such spoons are used by both Pic and her kitchen team.

She is now running her family business La Maison Pic, which includes a boutique hotel, a cooking school and a casual bistro, and has opened another Michelin starred restaurant in Lausanne, and her first Paris restaurant, LaDame de Pic.

Would she like to have a restaurant in China?

"Why not?" she responds. But there is no timetable for it yet, as there is no hurry.

After all, it took more than one century for the cafe started by Pic's great-grandmother outside the town of Saint-Peray in 1889 to become a stellar restaurant.