If there is one dessert that punctuates and tells the story of my life, my childhood and my journey, it is the lemon tart. It comes from my mother, who has always loved this dessert. She’s a good cook, but she’s always bought lemon tart from a pastry shop, looking for the best ones. When I was very young, I tasted a lot of lemon pies and, in Paris, where I was born, his favorite was that of Lucien Peltier, a monument of pastry on the rue de Sèvres.
We moved to Troyes when I was 3 years old. My mother rediscovered the taste of the lemon tart that she loved in that of Pascal Caffet, Meilleur Ouvrier de France who had cut his teeth at Peltier. Not very good at school, I decided to do a pastry CAP after meeting the Compagnons du Devoir, who made artistic sugar pieces for Pascal Caffet, which led me to do my 3e his home. I was 14, I was put on lemon pies for three days, I couldn’t take it anymore.
We then moved to Avignon and I started my apprenticeship at Mallard, a pastry shop on rue des Marchands. My boss made me dream by telling me about his internships in Paris, I saw passing the names of Christophe Michalak, Pierre Hermé, Philippe Conticini… There was a passion for pastry which I wanted to be part of. I decided to go to Paris when I was 17. I deposited CVs in all the sweet Parisian addresses. The only one that reminded me was the Stohrer house: it was the start of a long professional history.
Stohrer is a historic, timeless house, the oldest pastry shop in Paris, located rue Montorgueil since 1730, founded by Nicolas Stohrer, who is notably the author of the rum baba. This is where I started my career, with owners Françoise Duthu and Pierre Liénard. But I was on the move and I kept leaving to come back better. I went to work with Sébastien Gaudard at the Délicabar, returned to Stohrer as a second, left for a Franco-Japanese pastry shop, then at La Table d’Hédiard, two years at the Brasserie Thoumieux with Jean-François Piège, then at the restaurant Monsieur Bleu, before returning to Stohrer, to take the position of chef.
I then tried to open my first business near Opéra, which failed, and when the Dolfi family, owner of A la mère de famille, bought Stohrer in 2017, they called me to take over. head and resume the history of the house. I spent four years developing the brand with them, dusting it off while preserving it.
In all the places where I worked, I declined the lemon pie. It’s been two years since I set up my own brand. The lemon tart reigns supreme here: a crispy almond shortcrust pastry, roasted hazelnuts, a lime cream, fresh basil, lemon ganache instead of meringue. We are far from the one my mother tasted when she was younger, but it is obviously now her favorite lemon pie.