Meet Marie Delepiere

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marie Delepiere a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Marie, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

My journey began in pain. I grew up in Provence, in a family of 6 and 4 kids.
As a child, I faced trauma that left deep scars, the kind that shape who you become before you even understand who you are. For years, I carried the instinct to save kids, to protect the innocent from the harm I once knew. I dreamed of becoming a lawyer or a criminal profiler, fighting for justice, chasing truth, saving lives.
But when I studied law and criminology, I was forced to face my own unhealed wounds. I realized I couldn’t save anyone until I started saving myself. So I took a step back in failure.
I drifted into the cultural world for few years … theaters, radio, art searching for beauty and meaning in creation. Then life brought me back to my first passion: food. Through love, I entered the world of professional cooking. I learned everything from the ground up, cooking, managing teams, running restaurants, writing a cookbook, building a catering company, teaching others how to cook.
But it was when I moved to the U.S., went through a divorce, and rebuilt my life from scratch few times that my real purpose finally revealed itself.
I developed during Covid my home made bakery and baking became my mirror, my meditation, my medicine, my therapy.
And then I crossed the country by car and long story short I started cooking as a private chef, I found myself cooking for people who were struggling with illness, addiction, pain and lack of consciousness. And something magical happened. I began to heal them not just with good ingredients, but with intention. Each dish became a message of love, care, and awareness.
That’s when I understood — this was the mission I had been chasing all along.
To save, yes but not through fighting, through feeding the body and soul.
To heal, through presence and nourishment.
To love, through conscious creation.
Today, my purpose is clear…
To help people reconnect with themselves through food, create a bridge between body and mind by cooking with awareness, intention, and love.
I no longer try to save the world.
I simply do my part like the hummingbird, carrying one drop of water to the fire.
Because change doesn’t begin in grand gestures; it begins in the quiet act of care, one meal, one heart, one soul at a time.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’m Marie Delepière, a French private chef and pastry artisan based in Los Angeles. My work lives at the intersection of food, healing, and creativity. I call it conscious cuisine — food made with intention, emotion, and awareness. Every dish I create tells a story about care, connection, and transformation.
I started my career far from the kitchen, actually — I studied law and criminology because I wanted to protect and help others. Life, however, had its own plan. I went through personal challenges that reshaped my understanding of what it means to “heal.” Eventually, I found my way back to my childhood passion — cooking — and discovered that food could be the most powerful form of love and medicine.
Today, I work as a private chef for individuals and families, many of whom are going through health challenges or major life transitions. I design personalized menus using organic, seasonal, and local ingredients, always focusing on balance — not just nutritional, but emotional and energetic. For me, cooking isn’t just about flavor; it’s about creating harmony between body, heart, and mind.
What excites me most about what I do is watching people reconnect to themselves through food. Seeing someone rediscover pleasure in eating without guilt or pain. that’s the magic. It’s not about perfection; it’s about awareness and guided by heart.

My brand, Aimer by Marie (“Aimer” anagram of Marie, means to love in French), reflects that philosophy. It’s about infusing love into every step of the process from the ingredients I choose to the energy I bring when I enter in each kitchen.

One of the most meaningful things that came out of that stillness this year was the creation of my podcast in March after giving a baking class to a young girl who reminded me the little and passionate girl I was.
“Once Upon a Recipe” started as a simple idea to share stories that connect food and emotion. In each episode, I explore how recipes carry memories, identity, and healing. It’s a space where I can combine my love for storytelling, my culinary journey, and my belief that every recipe has a soul. Through it, I’ve found a new way to create and connect beyond the kitchen, through words, emotions, and shared humanity.

Right now, I’m focusing on expanding my private chef services and developing a series of workshops that combine cooking, mindfulness, and wellness, a space where people can learn not just how to cook, but how to listen to what their body truly needs. I’m also working on new recipes for a future cookbook that will celebrate this idea of conscious eating as a daily act of self-love.

At the same time, I’m working in developing a new project very close to my heart: a pastry shop built around the art of viennoiserie.. Viennoiserie is my passion, because for me, each layer tells a life story. Every fold represents a moment, joy, struggle, growth, resilience. When you bite into a perfect croissant, you’re not just tasting butter and flour; you’re experiencing patience, precision, and love.

At the end of the day, my mission is simple: to nourish people in a way that helps them feel more alive, more grounded, and more connected and stay in my creation free spirit.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back, I would say that the three qualities that have most shaped my journey are resilience, empathy, and the union of creativity and curiosity because together, they form the essence of how I live, work, and grow.
Resilience has been the foundation. My life has been filled with unexpected turns from my early dreams of becoming a lawyer, to the world of arts and culture, to finding my place in the kitchen being autodidact. . Every transformation came from a moment of rupture, and each time I had to rebuild from the inside out. I learned that resilience isn’t about being hard or unbreakable. it’s about being fluid, like dough. You rise, you fall, you rest, and you rise again. My advice to anyone starting their own path: embrace the detours. What feels like failure is often life redirecting you toward truth.

Empathy has been my compass. It’s what connects me to others and guides my cooking. My clients often come to me during vulnerable moments when their body, heart, or habits need healing. Empathy allows me to listen deeply, beyond words, and to translate their needs into something nurturing. If you want to strengthen empathy, start by being present with yourself. Learn to listen to your emotions instead of hiding from them. Compassion for others always begins with compassion and love for your own story.

And then there’s the most vital one – creativity and curiosity, which to me are one and the same. They are both about exploration — a desire to discover, to question, to express. Creativity is how I breathe; when I don’t create, I feel disconnected from who I am. Curiosity gives that creation direction. It pushes me to learn, to taste, to evolve. Together, they make life feel alive and meaningful. I really wish I’ll stay curious, always. Try, fail, reinvent, play. Don’t wait for perfection — creation lives in the process, not the result.
These three forces — resilience, empathy, and creative curiosity — are the layers of my own viennoiserie. Each one feeds the others. And just like in pastry, time, patience, and intention bring everything together.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

This past year has been one of the most intense and transformative of my life, personally and professionally.

I started the year in Los Angeles, surrounded by wildfires that were devastating homes, businesses, and dreams. It felt strangely familiar like déjà vu. Exactly ten years earlier, day for day, I was in the middle of a terrorist attack in Paris, escaping while holding my baby in my arms. And suddenly, here I was again, in the middle of chaos. I realized that the destruction I was witnessing outside was mirroring the chaos I had been carrying inside since childhood.

At the same time, I was supposed to begin a new private chef position for a celebrity. . The start was delayed for weeks because of the fires, and I found myself without work, unsure if everything I had built was about to collapse. When the job finally began, it quickly became emotionally very heavy. The client was highly demanding, critical, and abusive every day. One day, I realized that the universe was giving me a lesson in self-worth, and I made a difficult decision: I chose myself. I walked away.

That moment marked the beginning of a deep inner shift. I started speaking my truth, cutting old toxic ties, and learning to stand in my own power quietly, but firmly. Then, as if life wanted to remind me that every ending has meaning, I received a call that changed everything: I was invited to become the private chef for Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne.
It felt like a dream. The Osbourne family welcomed me with kindness and openness, without judgment or questions just genuine curiosity and appreciation for my food. For the first time, I felt seen, respected, and valued for who I am and what I create. When Ozzy left for his last concert in England, and everything that followed happened, I didn’t just lose a client, I lost someone who had given me a chance, a smile, and a deep sense of gratitude.

After that, came what I call la traversée du désert — the desert crossing. Two long months without any work, doubts flooding in, wondering if I was still meant to be here, in this city, in this life. During that time, I was also navigating my immigration process, which requires patience, faith, and trust in timing and a lot of money. Slowly, I began to rebuild again step by step, day by day.

This year, I learned that growth sometimes means choosing self-respect over opportunity, and peace over validation. I’ve learned to say not put my boundaries, even yesterday, when a client offered me an event for thirty guests at a trial private chef rate that didn’t honor my work or value. I thanked them and declined. I’ve realized that abundance comes when you align with your truth, not when you compromise it.

So my biggest area of growth this year has been self-respect and self love, patience, and letting go, speak my voice and truth and stop hidding.
I’ve learned that when you truly respect yourself — fully, without fear — you stop attracting people or situations that disrespect you. That’s when life finally begins to align with who you really are.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

https://www.instagram.com/la.real.story?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Cecile Delepiere

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