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Française Executive Chef Peter Adams, left, and Sous Chef Noah Applegate.
While Peter Adams, the head chef of Française, is known for his mastery of French cuisine, his earliest food memories come from the soil of his family’s farm in Missouri.
With a humble upbringing and plenty of family members to feed, Adams’ childhood was centered on self-sufficiency.
“[My grandma was] a Depression-era child so as a kid we didn’t really have packaged snacks or anything like that,” he says. “It was always like grandma and grandpa’s canned potted meats or peaches, stuff like that.”
By age 6, Adams was learning how to use a paring knife to peel and can peaches, shuck peas, and trim collard greens.
“Looking back on this, we actually ate really, really well and really close to the source of things,” Adams says.
His love for the kitchen also stems from time spent cooking with his father, who would cook up a big breakfast or dinner on his day off from working two jobs.
“That was like my time to spend with dad, sitting there and cooking with him,” he says.
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Adams moved to Spokane at age 12, got his first food industry job washing dishes at The Chalet on the South Hill when he was 15, and later worked as a fry cook at Spencer’s for Steaks & Chops and at Portobello’s restaurant — formerly located in the Lincoln Heights shopping center.
He never intended to become a chef. At first, he aspired to become a professional soccer player or skateboarder — goals his parents thought were impractical, so they encouraged him to follow his talent for cooking.
His parents relocated to Cleveland when he was 18, so Adams enrolled in culinary school there and took a job as a commis (junior chef) at Pier W. For an externship, he traveled to Lyon, France, and worked as a commis at Café Comptoir Brunet for 19 months.
Thanks to years of learning French in school and French heritage on his mother’s side, the immersion wasn’t too jarring for him.
“I always had this background of it and understanding of it, but really being immersed in it was amazing,” Adams says.
He was struck, however, by how seriously the French took their ingredients.
“Their vegetables don’t see refrigerators,” he says. “Like, you go to the market at 6 am to pick up everything that you need. It’s a huge culture shock, where most of the places I worked at the steaks came in little plastic packaging. There, that doesn’t happen.”
For Adams, the French approach to food changed everything.
“If the quality of the ingredients before you start cooking is this high level, you don’t have to do much,” he says.
At Française, that philosophy is evident in dishes like his favorite: poulet rôti ($35). The French-style roast chicken is brined, poached, dried overnight, and roasted in butter and herbs to be flavorful and juicy on the inside with crispy skin. Served with smashed and roasted potatoes, a truffle cream sauce with mushrooms, and more, Adams calls it “nostalgia on a plate.”
The seasonal change to the classic dish includes an Espelette pepper, fennel, Pernod-based sauce and peas, confit shallot, mushrooms, and lemon.
“It’s simple but I think that’s definitely one of the gateway drugs to French food for Spokane as far as chicken,” he says.
It’s also fundamental for Adams to use the whole ingredient — veggie scraps and bones go into stocks, and nothing is wasted — and he steers away from overcomplication in presentation.
“I don’t want my food to look like a science project for somebody,” he says. “I wanted there to be these relatable layers to it where they understand what the dish is.”
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Poulet Rôti Saint Rèmy.
After his time in Lyon, Adams took his skills to New York City, where he cooked at Gramercy Tavern, then spent 12 years back in Cleveland before finally settling down in Spokane in 2017. His extensive resume includes a year as chef de cuisine at Santé Restaurant and Charcuterie, four years as a private chef, and time at Ruins before he joined Française.
Adams had known Aaron Fish and Adam Hegsted of Eat Good Group from the inner circles of the restaurant scene.
“It’s a small chef community in Spokane. So when the opportunity popped up for Française, it all kind of lined out,” he says.
Française, which Eat Good Group opened in 2022, brings modern French fare to the South Perry District with dishes like française cassoulet (a duck and white bean stew), croque madame and charcuterie platters.
The space, housed in a building that’s over 100 years old, features exposed brick, dark wood floors, tall ceilings, and is decorated tastefully with plants and vintage pieces that match its antiquity.
Though Adams leads the kitchen at Française, he notes how he’s just a small part of the team. From General Manager Nicole Seaman’s curated wine selections to hardworking Sous Chef Noah Applegate, each person plays a pivotal role in creating a délicieux dining experience.
Adams sees Française as more than a French restaurant to showcase his skills. To him, it’s also a training ground for those new to the local food industry. Cooks in Spokane often skip foundational steps, he noticed, largely due to the lack (or types) of eateries willing to work with them to gain those skills.
“[The Eat Good Group] were very much pushing toward growing the cooks within their restaurants to move up within it and learn from each other,” Adams says. “I’m only as good as my newest line cook. We have to all grow together.”