What does it mean to be a globally renowned pastry chef? Cédric Grolet answers, dwelling on the evolution of the career.
Photos of desserts on the cover: @pavonitalia
The pastry chef
If names like Chanel, Dior and Yves Saint Laurent evoke the Haute Couture of the Ville Lumière, Cédric Grolet's belongs to Parisian Haute Patisserie. A 38-year-old native of Firminy - in the Loire region - Grolet boasts a palmares to make anyone envious. Having arrived in Paris in 2006, to train in the workshops of the famous boulangerie Fauchon, the young pastry chef quickly took off and landed at the hotel "Le Meurice" in the role of head pastry chef at Alain Ducasse's Michelin-starred restaurant.
"Working at Le Meurice has contributed tremendously to my career. One of the benefits of operating in a luxury hotel and alongside an exceptional chef like Monsieur Ducasse, is to relate to diners who want something truly excellent and extraordinary and are open to innovation. For a pastry chef this is challenging and stimulating in equal measure," he tells Falstaff Travel.
Thus, in Ducasse's restaurant, Cedric conquers even the most discerning palates, quickly becoming a leading pastry chef internationally. In 2015, he was named Best Pastry Chef of the Year by Le Chef; in 2017, he was Best Pastry Chef for Gault & Millau; and in 2018, he won Best Pastry Chef in the World at The World's 50 Best Awards. 2018 is also the year he opens his first shop: "Le Meurice Cédric Grolet" on rue de Castiglione in Paris, to be followed by "Cédric Grolet Opéra" in 2019, "Cédric Grolet at The Berkeley," inside the 5-star hotel between Hyde Park and the Knightsbridge neighborhood in London in 2022, then flying to Singapore in the luxurious "COMO Metropolitan" hotel.
Although tasting his creations - real works of art - that reproduce fake flowers and fruits in trompe-l'oeil is anything but cheap, the lines outside his bakeries are endless. In addition to winning over gourmands and gluttons the world over, Grolet, with more than 11 million followers, has become a veritable online social phenomenon, a matter that simultaneously attracts and disturbs many people. Indeed, there are many who accuse him of paying more attention to aesthetics than to taste, but he promptly replies, "That's not true, of course. One should never assume that people are stupid. They don't rush into my stores just because the cakes are a great Instagram opportunity. Of course, I pay more attention to images than when I started using Instagram eight years ago, but I would never add something or take something else away just to improve the appearance of a cake. I focus solely on the flavor. That's the way it always has been and always will be."
Already a few years ago, in unsuspected times, he was keen to clarify, "I am a classic French pastry chef, who likes to use a lot of butter, and I will continue to make my desserts with the fresh ingredients I have always used, regardless of trends. In pastry, what has abounded so far are cakes with colored icings, now I want to focus on other things, simpler but tastier. This for me is the current tendency."
Inevitably over the years, Grolet's professional life has undergone a revolution, and he admits that he can compare himself to a designer: "Yes, we could say that I am like a designer. Most of my creations are made by my team; instead, my job is to create, design and sketch. And of course, sometimes I also help out, particularly if we are shooting for television, photo shoots or social media, but that remains a completely secondary aspect at the moment," the king of pastry chefs concludes.
