Let It Reign

After former writer and beauty editor Erica Paredes opened her "evolving Filipino" restaurant Reyna in Paris, she looks back with us at the road that got her there

- Jaclyn Clemente Koppe

"Wow, she really did it," I shook my head incredulously.

When Erica Paredes posted a photo on Instagram of the façade of what was an old bistro which she has taken over to turn into her restaurant on Rue de Montreuil, I was pleasantly shocked. Having been a food and beverage insider for so long, I have seen players come and go. Many rush into a culinary career brimming with confidence, only to turn in their aprons at the slightest frustration or after the most minor altercation with a superior. So, while Paredes opening her restaurant Reyna (the Filipinised Spanish word for "queen") in one of the premier food capitals of the world might be surprising, it was not completely so. She is clearly made of much sterner stuff and she came into the business, yes, full of optimism, yet with the realistic view of somebody who has learnt to manage her expectations.

"I was warned by my friends who are chefs that it is so hard," Paredes explains during a voice call on Viber, a few weeks after Reyna opened. "It is different from cooking at home, of course, and cooking for strangers wherein you have to make money. At the same time, I was older when I decided to do it; so, I was not naïve, thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to be the next Gordon Ramsey"."