Just elected the world's best pastry chef, Paco Torreblanca talks about the redemption of the category, both in reputation and pay.
The interview
It is not easy to find consistency in the final minutes of the meal, usually entrusted to professionals that aren’t of the savory. Children of a lesser god, the dessert, which nevertheless shows signs of impatience.
It does not sit well with Paco Torreblanca, who has just been named Best Pastry Chef in the World by the 9th World Pastry Stars Congress, on a plebiscite of a jury of international colleagues. He urges young people to enter a branch, which should no longer harbor inferiority complexes in the kitchen. It’s his 150th award, including several honorary degrees: a capital of authority he intends to exploit by pursuing his dream of founding a free pastry academy, aimed at young people rich in passion and poor in resources. With his feet on the ground and his head among the stars.
“My philosophy is to never place aesthetics before taste, but I have also been told that I am one of the avant-gardists. I have helped many pastry chefs of great restaurants and teams of many famous chefs have passed through my house, such as Martín (Berasategui) and Ferrán (Adriá). I think I created a trend at the time that did not exist in Spain, when I arrived from France, and all these parameters have made people value my ideas, like when people told me that a saffron tart with steamed apples was crazy and I answered the gastronomic critic that the path that crazy people start on will later be traveled by the sane ones. Indeed, after 25 years this cake is still popular in Japan as well as in many other places .”
"Some pastry chefs get recognized, they call them 'sweet chefs,' although I don't approve of the definition. When Ferran Adrià took Spain to the roof of the world, we pastry chefs were the poor cousins of the cooks. It was not uncommon for restaurants with extraordinary cuisine to neglect desserts altogether. But when they gained prestige, reaching Two or Three Michelin Stars, they realized that their tables were missing a leg and pastry chefs were valued again. The problem today? That the few good ones earn almost more than the chefs. We are no longer the poor cousins, but the demanding ones. Now restaurateurs make every effort to grab the best professionals and pay them well."
"A Three-Star restaurant with bad desserts is absurd. However well the customer may have eaten, the dessert is the last memory that remains in his mind. You must finish on a high note and in fact a good meal can be ruined by a dessert that is not up to par, as rarely as that happens nowadays," Torreblanca insists. The secret of the profession remains hard work: only through dedication and sacrifice is it possible to achieve success, but pastry has great employment potential and in fact those who come out of an academy like Petrer's are almost always able to set up on their own. "Recognized pastry chefs make good money. Traditional pastry tends to disappear and transform into a more exclusive and personalized one. Large companies offer a range of low-priced products of questionable quality, but at the same time there are small pastry shops that personalize their work a lot, and the high-spending customer closes the circle and returns."
Source: Alicante Plaza
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