Let them Eat Leopard-Fur éclairs
Boulanger Bruno Solques is a renegade. The lopsided, squashed berry tarts at his Paris boulangerie defy the rigid standards of traditional French pastry, where symmetry and presentation are of utmost importance.
“It’s sad to have a row of identical cakes,” he says. “It’s boring.” On the conventions of patisserie establishments, he says: “I know all the rules by heart, but I don’t want to follow them.”
Solques isn’t alone. A wave of classically trained patissiers are rejecting tradition and infusing creativity into one of France’s most revered gastronomic institutions. Whether it’s decidedly unfussy tarts, international influences or unexpected ingredients, these chefs are putting personal stamps on their pastries – and on the profession.
A few blocks away from Solques’ free-form cakes, the pastries at Patisserie Sadaharu Aoki are, by contrast, feats of geometric precision. They may look conventional but hardly taste that way. A fusion master, Aoki’s melding of Japanese art with French tradition has won over Parisians, starting with their beloved millefeuille. To build his version of the vanilla slice classic, he whips macha (green tea powder) into pastry cream, creating the millefeuille macha, one of his most popular items. Aoki adds Asian flavours to other creations, like sesame in flans or sweet red bean paste layered on feuilleté pastry.
For the truly adventurous, Right Bank patisserie Pain de Sucre specialises in offbeat sweets. Owners Didier Mathray and Nathalie Robert delight in surprising customers with new tastes such as their amertume, a brioche with endive and orange marmalade, beer mousse and crumbed candied chestnuts, or their tatigala, an almond pastry crust with praline cream, quince pulp, caramelised apple and rosemary.
The shop has a cult following for its marshmallows, prominently displayed in tall glass jars in the window. These bear no resemblance to the crusty, stale variety you may remember from childhood: instead they are melt-in-your-mouth clouds of delicate flavours such as fleur d’oranger, chestnut and honey, or saffron and green tea.
Perhaps no one is pushing boundaries more than 38-year-old pastry chef Sébastien Gaudard at Delicabar café in the chic Bon Marché department store. Gaudard turns the concept of a traditional French meal on its head, giving desserts prominence on his menu and mixing savoury and sweet selections. He pairs a savoury green vegetable consommé, for example, with a sweet soup of chocolate and spiced apples. Diners can also indulge in a creamy egg custard sabayon au chocolat or rich sabayon gratiné with Comté cheese and potatoes.
Gaudard’s formal patissier training is evident in his interpretations of traditional pastries. A smoked salmon and fromage blanc fine feuille is Gaudard’s savoury take on the classic millefeuille. Sweet millefeuilles like chocolate cocoa bean or strawberry rhubarb veer towards the traditional, if only slightly.
If it is a traditional croissant you want, then Aurore Capucine is not the place to go. This tiny ninth arrondissement patisserie has won devotees across France with its flower essence specialities, such as the wildly popular rose and papaya sablés.
“There are plenty of people making éclairs, and you can’t do everything,” says patissier and owner Jean-François Petit. Along with flower essence, he adds herbs and spices to classic French recipes.
Petit has done things differently since he founded the shop with his wife Marie-Odile 20 years ago. In the early days, he flavoured his creations with coconut and lavender. “No one was doing that,” he says. “Now it’s much more common.”
Today’s customers are more open-minded, scooping up violet, geranium and lavender shortbread cookie sablés, or their savoury parmesan and piment d’Esplette (a chilli from the Basque region) siblings.
Petit’s first flower essence creation was born 10 years ago when a Japanese make-up-artist-turned-fashion-photographer asked him to make a flower-based cake for a photo shoot. Today, Petit’s tarte aux pêches à la rose, a rose-infused peach and almond cream tart decorated with real petals, is one of his most popular.
Small, neighbourhood pastry shops are not the only ones inspired to be creative. Paris’s grandes dames patisseries are having fun with traditional recipes, too. Fauchon, one of France’s best-known maisons de gastronomie, dresses up its best-selling éclair each season and gives it a fancy moniker – this year’s models being “leopard and fur”, coffee or chocolate éclairs iced with brown-spotted white and milk chocolate.
At Ladurée, its signature patisserie, the macaroon, easily lends itself to innovation. Each season, the boutique unveils original flavours of this almond cookie and cream sandwich, such as the current cotton candy, apricot ginger, orange saffron and strawberry poppy flower.
The title for most inventive macaroons belongs to legendary patissier Pierre Hermé. His latest – wasabi and grapefruit – will be launched in May, joining the ranks of olive oil and vanilla, rose, green tea and chestnut, and customer favourite chocolate and passion fruit. His Christmas collection of black truffle, balsamic vinegar and chocolate foie gras sold out quickly.
But do such unusual macaroons taste any good? Yotam Ottolenghi, chef patron of Ottolenghi London food and pastry shops, sampled Hermé’s macaroons during a Paris visit last month and gave a mixed review. “The rose, pistachio and caramel were amazing, but next time I’ll skip the hazelnut white truffle and green tea chestnut,” he says.
If sales are an indication, then tradition sells. Customers may be tickled to see champagne or lily-of-the-valley macaroons on offer but when it comes time to indulge, most stick with the tried and true. Ladurée’s bestsellers, for example, remain vanilla, chocolate, caramel and pistachio.
None of which deters trailblazers such as Solques, who doesn’t much care if his unconventional style isn’t for everyone. For him, it’s worth the freedom to be able to bake whatever he wants.
“Every morning,” he says, “it’s an inspiration.”
Jamie Cahill is the author of ‘The Patisseries of Paris’ (Little Bookroom)
