Marjorie Taylor and Kendall Smith Franchini, celebrate the 17th year of The Cook’s Atelier and Launch second cook book

Crisp, spring sunshine spills into The Cook’s Atelier in Beaune, France, where Marjorie Taylor is teasing her daughter, Kendall Smith Franchini. ‘I always like to say it’s her fault,’ she laughs, leaning over the kitchen’s gleaming, Instagram-famous marble counter. ‘She was the Francophile of the family.’

With a knowing eye-roll, Smith Franchini leans in, mirroring her mother as she begins to retrace their footsteps. ‘She’s a single mom, so we’ve been a very close mother-daughter team since forever. As a family, we had always had an interest in France. Growing up, as a high school kid in Arizona, I had a really good French teacher named Miss. Male [CHK], who was amazing. I became intrigued by the French language and culture, and their way of living. Mom worked in cooking and pastry, so we had always talked about what it would be like to someday live in France — though we never knew we would actually ever live here one day.

‘After high school I decided to make French and art history my majors at college and I did a lot of studying abroad. Then, after college, I ended up staying to teach English in the south of France. I never wanted to go back, so I was always trying to find a way to stay, so  eventually I moved to Paris to study and intern at Christie’s, where I worked in a little wine bar on the side and got really into it. That was in 2005, and in 2008 I came here, to Beaune in Burgundy, to study wine and viticulture at the CFPPA wine school.’

Marjorie cuts in, ‘And that’s when I get the call,’ she laughs: ‘At this point, I had a little restaurant and a cookery school in Phoenix of all places. I was doing my thing, it was fun. When Kendall would come home from college in the summer, she’d work with me, and this went on and on as she was having her adventure in France. Then I get a phone call that says, ‘Mom, you’re going to love this place. You should come.’ She said, ‘You’ve been telling me my whole life I can do anything, so why don’t you try it?’ And I thought, ‘Oh dear, that sounds like a challenge.’ But also, ‘Well, why not?! Let’s just see what happens.’ I tried to convince myself that it was sabbatical — that I’d just go for a year and if it’s supposed to be, it will be. That was in 2008.

‘At the time, Kendall was working for Kermit Lynch, a wine merchant here in Beaune, and I’m on my sabbatical, which was great, except I couldn’t work. It was the first time in a long time that we’d both been in the same place, and we just kept asking ourselves: ‘Should we try what I had been doing in Phoenix, here?’ ‘Could we figure this out?’ And so, in 2008, The Cook’s Atelier was born.

‘We started in a tiny little two-bedroom apartment right in the center of Beaune, where we turned the front bedroom into the kitchen. Kendall and her now husband, Laurent, had real jobs but they would come help me on Saturdays – which is market day here – to do the cooking classes. We never realized it was going to get so big. We’ve never advertised, but people come back, they tell other people. We had created a rogue little cooking school, all just so I didn’t get deported.

About 5 years later, Kendall is married to Laurent, and he’s like, ‘You guys need a bigger spot.’ Kendall and I were both a little nervous about it, we wondered, ‘What if we make this giant investment and nobody comes?’ But then we saw this building, where we are now. It was one of those life changing things we’re like, ‘If we don’t say yes, we’re going to regret this.’

And this is the part of the story I love, when Kendall’s husband joined the team. We became a group of 3 little people and that’s been fun. This year is our 17th season, and the whole concept started as a little spark: ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to have a cooking school where you could invite people from around the world to cook together, then gather around the same table?’ And apparently, it was a good idea, because here we are.’