Mourad Lahlou Biography

Mourad Lahlou, chef/owner of the Michelin-starred, immensely famous San Francisco restaurant Aziza, named after his mother, says the memory is the key to unlocking and defining his creative food. MOURAD: NEW MOROCCAN, his first book, has already been named one of the finest cookbooks of 2011 by Bon Appetit and a number of big publications. It's a story-driven study of Lahlou's sensuous culinary approach, which is a subtle blend of traditional Moroccan flavors and methods blended with today's freshest Northern California products. Mourad won Food Network's Iron Chef America by the greatest proportion in the show's history, despite being a semi-finalist for the James Beard Foundation's Best Chef: Pacific. Mourad began channeling memories of watching his mother and aunts cook in their spacious family home in the old medina of Marrakesh when he arrived in California from Morocco in 1985 to attend college. Mourad used to sit in the kitchen as a youngster, listening to the daily routine melodrama of the adults debating what to eat for lunch—and the predictable result, the food his grandpa had in mind all along. “My initial role model and longtime hero, Grandpa, wasn't a tyrant. With a smile, he continues, "He was an executive chef." Mourad gained a lifetime fascination for raw materials and their potential after accompanying his grandfather on his treasure quest to the market. He began experimenting in his San Francisco kitchen without any prior instruction, recalling, improving, and recreating as he went. He finished a master's degree in macroeconomics while cooking for himself, friends, and friends of friends, but the draw of the kitchen drew him away from his Ph.D. In 1997, he launched his first restaurant in San Rafael, California, which received three stars right immediately, then in 2001, he opened the distinctively contemporary Aziza. He explains, "I became a cook in a way that could barely have been more distinct from [other chefs]." “I memorized everything.” His mother wasn't there to educate him, but the voices of her and the other women who raised him were in his brain, "and it turns out they really wanted to come out." “Now I hear myself talking to my cooks: “When is it done?” he adds. It's delicious! When it tastes delicious, it's done!”

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