Chef David Marteau

I did not set out to write a cookbook that lives between two cuisines. I set out, thirty years ago, to become a good cook — and the two-kitchens idea found me somewhere along the way, in four places that each taught me something the others couldn't.

France

France gave me the foundation everything else stands on. I trained classically, the way generations of French cooks have — mother sauces, knife discipline, the unforgiving standards of a brigade kitchen. That training doesn't leave you. It's not a technique you apply; it's a posture your hands remember without asking permission.

Canada

Canada taught me leadership at scale. For seven years I led one of Montréal's busiest Italian kitchens — roughly 7,000 covers a week, a brigade of about forty cooks, high-volume production that leaves no room for a technique that only works when the kitchen is quiet. I placed in the top five nationally in a Nestlé Professional competition during those years, and learned what it takes to open and relaunch a restaurant under real pressure.

China

China is where the real discovery happened — where I watched a Cantonese cook build a sauce of extraordinary complexity in under three minutes, with the architecture of the great French sauces but none of their patience. That recognition, more than any single dish, is the reason French Knife, Asian Fire exists. China taught me balance: that two traditions can meet without either one apologizing for what it is.

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia is where the markets, the bold flavours, and the daily creativity keep the ideas moving. It's the region that keeps this project honest: a market stall teaches you things a formal kitchen never will.

I published my first book, Creative Cooking for the Global Kitchen, in 2011. French Knife, Asian Fire is the project that followed everything I learned in the years since — the first of fifteen cookbooks across three series from Éditions Marteau, alongside a separate culinary mystery novel, A Knife Between Courses.

Press & Media

For press inquiries, speaking engagements, interview requests, or publisher verification: editionsmarteau@hotmail.com