Paris Starn

New York Magazine’s beloved art critic, Jerry Saltz, once referred to Paris Starn as “a confection-maker who makes you wish she would send her confections to you”. Starn is something of a fantasy woman – a multi-hyphenate creative from the New York cultural aristocracy and whose culinary creations are one with her: whimsical, handsome, uncontrived. At the time of writing, the latest recipe on her newsletter, playing with food, is mac n’ cheese. Suffice it to say, if this particular mac n’ cheese could go see a film right now, it would elect to see Anora, not Wicked.

What confection are you lining up for? A turkey pot pie adorned with intricate feathers made from flour? A sticky toffee pumpkin cake with a dollop of homemade crème fraiche? Or a tomato corn cheddar galette? Starn, aged 30 and most demure of New York’s it girls, has mastered them all.

After a brief spell in fashion, she decided to back a brighter horse: food – one whose ascent these past ten years has been so stark you’d need to have been living under a rock not to notice that la bouffe has become le huitième art.

The “culinary arts” designation might once have been reserved for a handful of establishments in Paris or Lyon; today, you can barely move for Michelin-endorsed spots in New York, Barcelona, Hong Kong or Berlin. Even that is far from the whole picture: an entire star system of off-Michelin chefs has emerged en parallèle – Laila Gohar, Zelikha Dinga, Imogen Kwok, and Starn – whose focus is not just on ingredients but on the aestheticization of the meal at hand. The star system’s main vehicle is Instagram, where Starn has no fewer than 131k followers.

“Food is an experience, regardless whether that’s simply visual or gustatory,” our it girl tells Semaine. Starn grew up watching Giada de Laurentiis on the Food Network. “Giada would always say: you eat with your eyes first. There’s no reason for [taste and aesthetics] to be separate from one another.” Purists have been known to decry the vanguard for style over substance, but Starn has little truck with it. When I raise the argument, she lets out an audible groan. Her voice is raspy and vowels drawn-out; Nara Smith by way of Patty and Selma.

Starn grew up part of the New York cognoscenti. She is the daughter of Mike Starn, an artist, and Anne Pasternak, the director of the Brooklyn Museum. She grew up going to art galleries every weekend — although what moved her more than anything were the clothes at Comme des Garçons, where she would spend hours window shopping in wonderment.

She appeared in several episodes of Sesame Street between the ages of two and six. At 12, she starred in a short film (Anna) directed by her godmother’s sister, Liliana Greenfield-Sanders – who also worked on Zoolander. Starn’s husband, Théo Soulages, is from a smart neighbourhood in Paris on the Rive Gauche and works as a consultant in healthcare. They met on Hinge, though conveniently realised they were already living on the same block – not too shabby. To rehearse the first dance before their wedding – a Renaissance-era shimmy called a galliard – Théo found what one writer described as a “medieval dance instructor”.

Starn has, by all accounts, led a charmed life – and her job is equally whimsical. Google “Paris Starn”, and the first prompt suggests she is a “content creator.”

Vogue, meanwhile, called her a “food stylist” when they chronicled the Paris leg of her wedding in June (A later ceremony took place in upstate New York in September). When I ask Starn what she would call herself, she splits her job into three parts (a decidedly modern reply): “I write and develop recipes on Substack; part two is collaborations on Instagram; and part three is catering: I do savoury and dessert for both small and large events.” What fee does she charge? “No, no, I can’t answer that.” She gives a big whoop of laughter. She once made a birthday cake for the pop star Rosalia: my guess is she costs a pretty penny.

But she may be worth every single one. There is something hypnotically imperfect about Starn’s culinary inventions. The cakes are always on the verge of crumbling: chocolate drips; cream oozes; pastels abound; everything is frothy.

The little blobs of meringue placed on top of her princess cake are finished with tiny turquoise pearls in a manner so deliciously perverse the eye cannot help but wonder if they’re intended as miniature breasts. The whole thing is extremely fun; almost like a game. Her Substack newsletter, playing with food, embraces this ludic vibe along with 15k subscribers. Though pointedly artisanal, Starn’s recipes are nonetheless modish and elegant. “My work got called beautifully decrepit recently,” she says, which just about hits the nail on the head.

“I’ve always loved things with a lot of texture,” she carries on, “to combine different feelings together. I used to do a lot of thrifting when I was younger, and I’d start by running my hands along the fabrics to select things before picking them out.”

She brings this same sort of tactility to her current craft — “I love cooking because I love doing things with my hands” — and it’s this that gives it its singular quality. Her confections are like the culinary equivalent of a (very beautiful, very expensive) patchwork quilt.

One word that springs to mind when describing Starn is unrevealing. Which is odd for an influencer, whose job it is to show people what they like, and what their audience should like as well. What’s hot and what’s not, according to Paris Starn? The answer remains vague. “I don’t like ranking things,” she says. Does she suffer influencer fatigue? “Nooooo,” she mews. “It’s just so hard to decide… I’m the sort of person who changes my mind every day on everything.” Right now, her favourite spots are Radio Bakery in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, The Grill in Midtown’s Seagram Building, and The Odeon, where her order of choice is a Martini and fries.

Would she ever open up her own place? Starn tells me she has “an idea in mind”, but which she cannot under any circumstance tell me. She is very good at shutting down a prompt – God knows I tried to give her several. If I had to guess, I’d imagine a multidisciplinary concept store which you’re not entirely sure is a bakery or a consignment shop. “Put the pastries closer to the Van Notens,” I can hear her murmur. “Erm, Veronica, we discussed this: custard and Margiela don’t mix!”

One topic on which I’m surprised to find she has “no opinions” is that of nomad chefs. Increasingly, Starn’s peers are choosing more itinerant career paths, bringing their cuisine from one establishment to the next rather than setting up shop in order to save on rent and bills.

Many are doing this through supper clubs (like Anna Søogard, previously head chef at London’s beloved Bistro Freddie) or through residencies (like Diarmuid Goodwin, who in the last month alone has sold out week-long stints at Waterman House in Clerkenwell). “I didn’t even know that was happening,” Starn says — surprising for someone seemingly so tapped in. Although it does seem to be a theme among women of the moment — Cynthia Erivo had the same reaction upon learning that people were “taking the lyrics to defying gravity and really holding space with that” in a now viral interview.

Perhaps Starn isn’t as tapped in as she appears. And maybe that’s the trick. She is not chronically online, and little influenced by others — safe for the Gohar and Kwok, whom she twice namechecks. “My inspirations are seasonal,” she explains.

“I remember being younger and seeing the Fragonards at the Frick, and thinking they were amazing – then returning a little later and thinking: oh, no.” What might come across as chronic indecision is, in fact, the sign of a free spirit. It’s Starn’s refusal to be defined by the practice of others that lends her own work such an organic and idiosyncratic feel. Sure, the topoi of today’s culinary Arts (capital A) are all there – sensuality, still lives – but they seem to happen by accident, rather than by imitation.

That creative independence extends to her personal life: Starn will remain Starn at least until she and husband Soulages have children – and despite the French “soulages” meaning something quite beautiful (“relieves”). Starn, I later leant, means star in Scottish, so the trade-off seems worth it: plus, “Paris Starn just has a better ring to it,” she tells me.

“Statistics show that women are happier in marriages where they keep their own [maiden] name.” There are several reasons why this might be. For one thing, research has shown that couples in which both parties enjoy successful careers tend to be happier; and the financial stability afforded by a double income tends to alleviate any stressors that might dampen a relationship. But being an excellent chef, no doubt, also helps.

By William Hosie for Semaine.
Photography by Tina Tyrell.