Born in London to a Greek-Cypriot father and Finnish mother, Tessa Kiros developed an interest in the food of different cuisines and travel from an early age. After growing up in South Africa, she left home at eighteen to travel and cook, working in restaurants in London, Sydney, Athens, and Mexico. She now lives in Tuscany.
Provence to Pondicherry begins, well, in Provence, where Tessa first fell in love with French food, and explores the Mediterranean region’s links between the indigenous ingredients, flavours, materials, and traditions. She then follows the path of the early French explorers, traveling to the island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, Vietnam in South East Asia, Pondicherry in India, and the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion, before finally returning to France, in the region of Normandy, whose cuisine is so different from the South of France.