Heir to four generations of Alsatian bakery and pastry-making tradition, Pierre Hermé began his career at the age of 14 as an apprentice to Gaston Lenôtre.
Today he creates the world most famous and probably tastiest Macarons. Lightly crunchy crumbling in style, filled with passion and made to amaze. Each piece is a work of art. Highly priced but deserving every penny.
Famous in France, Japan and the United States, the man that Vogue called "the Picasso of Pastry" revolutionized pastry-making with regard to taste and modernity. With "pleasure as his only guide", Pierre Hermé has invented a totally original world of tastes, sensations and pleasures. With his original approach to the profession of pastry chef, he revolutionizes even the most firmly entrenched traditions. For example, he prefers discreet pastry decors and "uses sugar like salt, in other words, as a seasoning to heighten other shades of flavour." Refusing to sit on his laurels, he is always revising his own work, exploring new taste territories andrevisiting his own recipes.
As a result, praise has often been lavished on Pierre Hermé, who has been called "pastry provocateur" (Food & Wine), "an avant-garde pastry chef and a magician with tastes" (Paris-Match), "The Kitchen Emperor" (New York Times) and "The King of Modern Pâtisserie" (The Guardian), along with honours and decorations, as well as – most importantly – the admiring gratitude of connoisseurs of gourmet sweets.
Pierre Herme, A Mystery by Charles Znaty: He is often asked where and how he gets his ideas for taste, texture and flavour combinations, these tasty creations that make up his brand and are recognizable among a thousand. He willingly answers... inspiration comes from his weakness for sweets, pleasure, sensations, encounters, fragrances and textures. Pierre Hermé is curious about everything and everything inspires him. It seems so easy! He travels while we are carried away by his creations. Many things have been written about Pierre Hermé: that he is “the Picasso of pastry-making; a Virtuoso of sweets; an Architect of emotions; the Dior of desserts”... but comparisons sidestep the issue. Various explanations have been sought, such as the lineage of pastry chefs he comes from, his training with the master Gaston Lenôtre, or his Alsatian heritage. Pierre Hermé admits that he owes his “passion for the profession” and his excessive taste for “work well done” to all of the above. To these criteria, he immediately adds “his eye for detail” and his “mental imagery”. These images let us catch a glimpse of his inner imaginary landscape, a sort of Zen garden where each stone contains an emotion, which Pierre Hermé, tirelessly and with patience, arranges with his delicate touch and that special tenderness of his which at times is visible in his eyes. A “mental landscape” where he finds his inspiration, cultivates, composes, imagines, looks, weighs and invents what our pleasures of tomorrow will be.
