Le destin d'une jeune bonne devenue grande cuisinière, vu par l'un de ses apprentis amoureux. Avec ce roman aux airs d'autoportrait décalé, Marie Ndiaye livre l'un des sommets de son œuvre.

"Her entire capacity for love, selflessness, suffering, hope--the kitchen had commandeered these long before I ever met her, and what few loving resources that had managed to escape were reserved for her daughter."
A former commis chef recounts the life and career of La Cheffe, a once-famous chef whose assistant--and unrequited lover--he was for a long time. At the heart of this story is cooking experienced as a spiritual adventure. Not that the body and its pleasures are absent. Quite the opposite--they are tools for a journey of transcendence, La Cheffe pushing ever father in her quest for purity.