Paso By Way Of Bordeaux
Photography by Jayme Burrows
As a sophomore at Templeton High School, Julien Asseo felt restless. “I should have graduated in 2005,” he says, sitting at a table with his wife Courtney in their new Paso Robles restaurant, Les Petites Canailles. “But I was a very rebellious teenager. I loved food and I loved cars. I decided to go with food.”
Julien comes by that insubordination honestly. Born into a winemaking legacy in Saint-Émilion, France, Julien moved with his family to Paso Robles when he was 10 years old. His father, Stephan Asseo of L’Aventure Winery, abandoned the strict winemaking regulations of his homeland for the freedom of the New World. “He wanted to make wine without someone telling him how to do it,” Julien says.
But at 15, Julien chose to move back to the southwest of France, where he enrolled in culinary school and graduated into a job at a brasserie in Paris, where he stayed for five years. “Instead of going straight into a Michelin-starred restaurant where you’re part of a 2-person team and all you do is pick herbs or clean lettuce, I got to see everything. I got to break down fish, I learned how to make charcuterie, to make sauces, braise. I showed that I was interested, so they gave me more and more projects,” he says. “It was a great introduction to the life of a restaurant.”
Eventually, however, the low pay and high cost of living in Paris wore him down. So he moved back to California, this time to Los Angeles. There, he worked in a restaurant with the woman who would become his wife, she at the front of the house, and he at the back. The restaurant closed within a few short months, but their relationship continued. “This guy, 21 years old, fresh off the boat from France ― he just charmed me,” Courtney says with a laugh. When the opportunity arose to work under internationally renowned chefs in Las Vegas, the two jumped at the chance. There, Courtney worked the front of the house at Daniel Boulud’s DB Brasserie, and Julien, in the kitchen under Joël Robuchon and at Restaurant Guy Savoy where he became Executive Chef. The plan was to stay in Las Vegas just a couple of years. They stayed for a decade.
Chef Julien Asseo brings his rascally pedigree home with Les Petites Canailles
“I was always driven,” Julien says. “It was like ‘I gotta make it, I gotta make it.’ But then we started a family, and my priorities shifted. I always dreamed of opening my own restaurant; it was just a matter of where and when.” As for where, he chose to return to Paso Robles, to a little storefront on Spring Street with a skylight and good bones that Courtney loved immediately. The seller accepted their offer just weeks after the birth of their second child, and on Nov. 1, 2019, the Asseos’ “third baby” was born: Les Petites Canailles.
“The menu is classic French, but with a little modern twist,” Julien says. “After seven years of working in fine dining, I wanted to incorporate a bit of that but keep it approachable.” Diners here can find classic bistro dishes like steak frites, oysters on the half shell, roast chicken, leek vinaigrette and baba au rhum, each with a decidedly New World stamp. The restaurant also boasts an impressive wine list, including local bottles and those from across the regions of France. One section of the wine list titled “The Family” features wines from Julien’s father and brother-in-law in Paso Robles, his uncle and grandparents in Saint-Émilion and his godfather in Alsace (from the venerated Hugel winery, established in 1639).
So how does owning a restaurant compare to working as an employee?
“You don’t have a choice anymore,” says Courtney. “You’ve got to do it all, you can’t call in sick. So much depends on us that there are no days off.” Julien nods his head. “It’s no secret, you have to put in the hours. But you’re doing it for yourself, not for anyone else.”
What about the restaurant’s name, Les Petites Canailles? “It means ‘The Little Rascals,’” Courtney says. “We named it for our children.” Julien smiles. “And for myself, too, a little bit.”
