Today, longtime San Diego chef Stefani De Palma will cook the most important meal of her life.
De Palma will represent Team USA in the international Olympics of cooking known as the Bocuse d’Or in Lyon, . The two-day, biennial competition was created in 1987 by renowned French chef Paul Bocuse and is considered the toughest and most prestigious cooking competition in the world.
De Palma is only the third woman chef to represent the U.S. since 1987. Susan Weaver led the American team in 1987 and Tracy O’Grady was head chef in 2001. Only one woman chef has ever won the Bocuse d’Or, Léa Lister of Luxembourg in 1989.
Before she began training in Napa Valley to represent Team USA in July 2023, De Palma spent 15 years at San Diego’s Michelin three star restaurant Addison by William Bradley. In an interview Friday, Bradley said it’s been exciting to watch De Palma’s transition over the past couple of years from restaurant chef to world-class competitor.
“It’s an extraordinary accomplishment that in a short period of time she went from running a kitchen with myself to shifting to a competition mindset,” Bradley said. “That goes to show her talent and her ability to really concentrate. That’s the beauty of who she is. She’s extremely focused, extremely loyal and very determined.”
At the Bocuse d’Or on Sunday, De Palma — working in concert with her commis (novice) chef Bradley Waddle —will have 5-1/2 hours to prepare and serve two themed platters. That sounds simple enough, but the pressure is extreme, the work rigorous and meticulous and the jury of judges from 24 competing countries is the toughest in the world.
The awards ceremony is scheduled for 6 p.m. Lyon time Monday (9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time). It can be livestreamed at bocusedor.com/en/streaming.
In the history of the competition, Team USA has only won the gold medal once, when Texas chef Matthew Peters triumphed in 2017. has won gold eight times, Norway five times and Denmark twice. Team USA also won a silver medal in 2015, but no others over the years.
In order to make it to the Bocuse d’Or, De Palma and Waddle first had to compete last June against teams from Canada and 10 Latin and South American countries. They won first place at that competition, so Team USA has already proven it can handle high-stakes pressure.
De Palma has been in Lyon for the past week and wasn’t available for an interview, but in a recent Instagram video she talked about her single-minded determination to win the Bocuse d’Or.
“I’m competing about myself in my last run, and that’s it,” she said. “I have been training for this for a long time — without even knowing it — to reach the top of the podium in Lyon, and that’s all I’m focused on. That’s the biggest part of the competition, for me.”
De Palma grew up in the San Gabriel Valley city of Arcadia and attended Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Pasadena. After a three-month cooking internship in Italy, she moved to San Diego in 2007 and applied to Bradley for a pastry position at the recently opened Addison.
She gradually rose through the ranks of chef de partie, chef tournant, pastry sous chef and sous chef at Addison. In 2016, at age 27, she was promoted to chef de cuisine, the No. 2 position below Bradley. She was by his side when the restaurant earned its first Michelin star in 2019, its second in 2021 and its third in 2022.
But even before Addison received its third star, De Palma had decided in early 2022 she was ready for a new challenge. A few months after she left the restaurant in 2023, she applied, and was accepted, to train with other aspiring American chefs for the Bocuse d’Or.
To help improve Team USA’s chances in the global contest, the Ment’Or Foundation was formed in 2008 by chefs Jerome Bocuse, Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller. It provides professional mentorship and training to American chefs year-round, and it select and s the Team USA competitors.
De Palma and Waddle have been tutored by head coach Sebastian Gibrand, who won a silver medal for Sweden in 2019. Team USA President is Gavin Kaysen. From 2004 to 2007, Kaysen was the executive chef at the former El Bizcocho restaurant at the Rancho Bernardo Inn. In 2007, he competed for Team USA at the Bocuse D’Or and made it to the finals. Kaysen now lives with his family in Minneapolis where he owns multiple restaurants.
In a recent interview on Instagram, coach Gibrand spoke about De Palma’s competitive edge, saying: “Chef Stefani De Palma is super committed. She has the eye on the prize and she is so determined and knows exactly every inch of what she’s doing.”
Ment’Or executive director Yong Jun said of De Palma: “She’s extremely organized, she’s very focused, she’s, of course, talented, and when she’s focused she has her goal and she knows what she needs to do.”
Bocuse d’Or judges score the teams in the areas of tasting and cooking. The tasting jury rates the candidates’ creations based on criteria such as presentation, taste, cooking techniques, hygiene, respect for the products and the originality of the recipes. And the kitchen jury examines the technical details as well as compliance with the rules.
Bradley, who will be watching the competition via livestream Sunday and Monday, said he believes De Palma’s intensive training in Napa and the many years she spent in multiple kitchen positions at Addison have prepared her for the “uncharted waters” of competition.
“I think they should do quite well,” he said of De Palma and Waddle. “Expectations are always high, as they are at every Bocuse d’Or, but overall, her family at Addison are extremely proud of her and no matter what the outcome, she should hold her head up high. She has made us all proud.”
