“From a very young age, I was fascinated by the technicality of pastry. My mother always chose the best birthday cakes with great care. I particularly remember the pleasure, a dessert with a caramelized joconde (almond) biscuit, a layer of chocolate mousse and a layer of vanilla bavaroise… I was so intrigued and passionate about this art that, at 16, I I wanted to do an internship with the pastry chef where my mother got her supplies. I wasn’t very good at school, I needed something stimulating.
I learned a lot in the kitchens of my parents, who set up the first Chinese restaurants in the Luxembourg Gardens. My mother was in the dining room, my father in the kitchen. They did a lot of dim sum. I helped with the washing, shelling the shrimp, sorting the vegetables. But my taste memories are mainly linked to my mother’s cooking at home, which had nothing to do with that of the restaurant, since she liked to prepare traditional French dishes: navarin, shallot flank steak, quiches…
I also learned a lot from books. We lived in the 5th arrondissement and next to our house, rue Dante, was the first Librairie gourmande, a tiny space where old books and culinary works of all kinds were piled up. I could spend hours there, it was my refuge. The owner, Geneviève Baudon, knew everyone and got me an internship with the pastry chef Gérard Mulot. I enrolled in a hotel school, rue Belliard, where I first did a cooking course, then a pastry course. I was definitely more comfortable with pockets, pasta and measurements than with a deboning chicken.
Spun sugar competitions
Shortly after, I got a job in the pastry department of Le Train bleu, where I made classics: baba, opera, clafoutis… At the same time, I trained for spun sugar competitions. I had a lot of fun, but today, it all bores me a little, it’s technical performance, flashy, we play with the food, then we throw it away, we’re not interested in the taste .
I worked at Meurice, at Oberweis, at Luxembourg, at Jules Verne, at the Eiffel Tower, and finally at La Grande Epicerie, where I stayed for twelve years. Until I decided to leave to dedicate myself to bread. I had been feeling the call of bread and sourdough for a long time, which I learned to master with the brilliant baker Thierry Delabre. [décédé en 2021]. I did more training and internships, discovered panettone, immersed myself in it, and went to improve my skills in Italy. I realized that we almost only know this product in an industrial form.
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