High Priest of Pastry Chefs Takes Delhi on a Guided Tour of His Magical World of Flavours

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

Pierre Herme explaining the finer points of a
macaroon at his tete-a-tete with the city's leading
chefs, restaurateurs and bloggers at Le Cirque,
The Leela Palace New Delhi, Chanakyapuri.
Picture: Courtesy of Rupali Dean

WHEN Chumki Bharadwaj, Associate Editor, India Today Spice, informed us that more than 90 invitees had confirmed their attendance for the 'High Tea with Pierre Herme' organised on Monday jointly by her publication and The Leela Palace New Delhi, Chanakyapuri, I expected all hell to break loose. But Rajesh Namby, the hotel's Executive Assistant Manager (F&B), did not bat an eyelid. With clockwork efficiency and dazzling speed, he re-arranged the seating at Le Cirque, the appropriately chosen venue of the event, and inspired the equally even-tempered Executive Chef Christophe Gillino to make food for a gathering of 100-plus leading chefs, restaurateurs and bloggers of the city. It is not for nothing that Namby has been named Delhi's Best F&B Manager not once but on several occasions by top critics, including Vir Sanghvi, and leading publications.

Herme, universally hailed as 'The Picasso of Pastry', was having a quite lunch at Megu, the hotel's Japanese restaurant, when all this action was happening. When he came up to Le Cirque with his charming wife and his company's president, Charles Znaty, after what seemed like a soul-satisfying meal, he looked a little apprehensive. To unwind him, I asked him how his Sunday visit to Agra was and he instantly broke into a sunny smile, and said, "It was beautiful! It was too beautiful!"

France's most celebrated patissier, whose macaroons and chocolates are in a league of their own, dispensed with the services of the interpreter and connected effortlessly with the audience, whose questions were as well-researched as the answers were well thought out. The session was studded with profound one-liners from Herme.

Herme sketches out the macaroons he conceives
and then writes detailed recipes below. Here's his
sketch of his best-known macaroon, Ispahan.
Picture: Courtesy of Rupali Dean

"If there are no flavours to invent, I would be dead," said the man who reinvented macaroons (or macarons, as he insisted on calling them, in the way a true-blue Frenchman would call these confections). "There's no conflict between tradition and creativity," he said when asked about how he viewed the contributions of molecular gastronomy to the pastry chef's craft. "When you're in pastry school, keep asking questions, keep demanding more. Don't just accept what your teachers tell you. I was known as the guy who asks too many questions," said the former student of Lenotre, which Sabyasachi Gorai described as "the Harvard of pastry chefs", in response to a question on how a newbie could aspire to become like him.

He also shared with us his personal gold standard. "A macaron should be slightly crunchy when you bite into it and then it must be soft, not chewy," he said, laying down the definition of perfection, which The Oberoi New Delhi's talented pastry chef, Vikas Vibhuti, hopes to follow to the last letter when he unveils his own line of these delicious little temptations that Herme has made us fall in love with.

At the India Today Conclave, Herme, who draws inspiration from around the world, did not say anything categorical about how India has influenced him, but on Monday, he talked about his love for Alphonso mangoes and his interest in mustard oil. "I have always wanted to taste mustard oil to be able to understand its flavours and I got to do it during my present visit," he said, without divulging more, in response to MasterChef India co-host and The Leela Gurgaon's Executive Sous Chef Kunal Kapur's suggestion that he should not leave the country without having Dal Makhni and Butter Chicken. Well, one of his famous macaroons, inspired by a visit to an olive oil press in Italy, has among its ingredients the green first-press olive oil, vanilla and individual green olives sliced by hand into three pieces.

Herme dazzled us with the array of ingredients that he uses in his macaroons and chocolates. Of course, we didn't get to bite into the ones with foie gras, white and black truffles, which Herme rolls out only during Christmas, but we did get to taste combinations of vanilla from Mexico, Madagascar and Tahiti, hazelnut from Piedmont, cinnamon from Sri Lanka, lemon from Sicily, and single-origin chocolate from, among other places, a Venezuelan village named Chuao, which has no proper road, but whose 122 cocoa farmers produce a magical ingredient for the patissier's repertoire.

"We always have 18 different kinds of chocolates on our menu," Hermes said -- and the point to note is that he never repeats a collection from one season to another. What about the rose-litchi-raspberry combination that has immortalised Ispahan, his most famous macaroon? "We have 42 recipes with this combination," said the man who revels in the fine art of "the management of combinations of flavours".

Herme was only 14 years old when he got interested in macaroons. That was the year 1976 and a macaroon then meant, to quote Herme, "two biscuits with just four different types of fillings". By now, Herme must have left a trail of several hundred flavour combinations, but he's constantly seeking out more. I now wonder when we'll get to savour a hint of mustard oil in his macaroons.

Who's Who Eat Out of Pierre Herme's Hand As He Reveals Secret of Best-Selling Macaroon

This is the report that appeared in Mail Today (Page 8) on Sunday, March 9.
Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

DELEGATES TO THE India Today Conclave 2014 started Day Two with a sweet surprise from the man who rewrote the flavour DNA of the macaroon and turned it into a global sensation. A packed house got not only a peek into the mild-mannered Pierre Herme's universe of tastes and pleasures, but also generous helpings of the confection that's been singularly responsible for his global fame.

Herme built his reputation on the Ispahan, his best-selling macaroon that marries the never-before-combined flavours of fresh raspberry, canned litchi and rose petal buttercream. It is a monument to his ability to create new taste profiles and he demystified the process at the session chaired by the acclaimed food writer Rashmi Uday Singh.

Pierre Herme wowed the high-powered turnout
on the second day of the India Today Conclave
2014 on Saturday, March 8, with his globally
renowned macaroons, flown in from Paris

"An idea comes to me from an image or a product, or a conversation I have with someone, or something that I have read," he said as our teeth sank into a Celeste, a marriage of passion fruit, rhubarb and strawberry, and another made with Peruvian dark chocolate from the village of Asprobo in Morropon province, and yet another that combined the seductive powers of milk chocolate and passion fruit.

Even Deepika Padukone, looking svelte as always in a white dress, couldn't resist the temptation of having one. She walked into her conversation with Koel Purie Rinchet, which followed Herme's session, eating one of the macaroons that had won the heart of the who's who gathered in the hall.

It was on a visit to Bulgaria in 1987, when he was a pastry chef with the French fine food merchant Fauchon, that the macaroon maestro hit upon the idea that evolved into Ispahan. He was struck by the use of rose in Bulgarian cuisine, so he returned and created a cake called Paradise with fresh raspberries and rose petal butter cream.

Paradise did not become the global rage till he added litchi in 1997 and it was then that Herme developed the macaroon with the new formula. Today, as many as 40 different products from Herme's empire have the three ingredients in different proportions.

"I have in mind the taste and texture, which I translate into a drawing with a precise recipe at the bottom," Herme continued, reminding one of the creative process of Satyajit Ray, who used to sketch every scene before shooting it.

At any given time in his Paris laboratory, 30 to 40 new products are developed, tasted and tested, for Herme, like a haute couturier, makes "high-end customised products" exclusively for individual clients who get to savour flavour combinations that are never repeated again. Unsurprisingly, Pierre Herme, the brand, is on the Comite Colbet, an exclusive club of French luxury labels.

"My ideas and inspirations come from everywhere," Herme said. On a recent visit to Hong Kong, for instance, he discovered the Eight Treasures Tea, whose remarkable flavours are most likely to find their way into his future creations.

Rashmi Uday Singh, who surprised the audience by mentioning how Herme had developed a keen interest in Valmiki's Ramayana, asked the 'Picasso of Pastry' if India was going to inspire him to create a new flavour. Herme, who first came to India a couple of years ago on a holiday, chose not to answer the question. Maybe there's something cooking in his laboratory that he doesn't yet wish to reveal to the world.

India Today Conclave to Showcase the Pastry Chef Who Made Macaroons A Global Gourmet Phenomenon

A part of this article has been drawn from the curtain-raiser I wrote for the Mail Today dated March 7, 2012.

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

IN THE 13-year history of the India Today Conclave, the only chef who has had anything to do with the country's definitive festival of ideas is a self-effacing man named Rajesh Wadhwa, who presides over the kitchens of the Taj Palace, New Delhi, and ensures that each gala dinner is more memorable than the one before.

A little later today, for the first time in the history of the India Today Conclave and its many copycats, a chef is going to take the centre-stage. France's most celebrated pastry chef and the god of macaroons, Pierre Herme, will showcase his world of flavours, first at a solo session and then at high tea, where the delegates will get to sample the confection that has the world from London to Qatar, Dubai and Tokyo eating out of his hand.

Pierre Herme is the youngest
man ever to be named France's
Pastry Chef of the Year. Picture
Copyright: Jean Louis Bloch Laine

Herme, who's on his first visit to India, is being presented by the Embassy of France. The Ambassador of France, Francois Richier, a master of nuclear diplomacy in the mould of our own Rakesh Sood, the Prime Minister's Special Envoy on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, was worried that Herme's macaroons may sideline weightier matters such as nuclear power and the space programme.

It may happen, though, that the Picasso of Pastry, which is how Vogue magazine has described the patissier, wakes up the delegates and get them into the mood to discuss the eclectic range of subjects lined up for Conclave's Day Two -- from psephology to robotics, terror to space exploration, cinema to sanitation, and finally, Salman Khan on 'Being Human'. France is the Conclave's partner country -- and you can't imagine it without good food and wine. Hence Herme.

The youngest person to be named France's Pastry Chef of the Year, and the only member of his profession to be inducted into the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, the French equivalent of a knighthood, Herme is best-known for his unusual macaroons, his most famous creation being the one with olive oil and vanilla.

Christophe Gillino, a world-travelled Frenchman and Executive Chef of The Leela Palace New Delhi, underlined the importance of Herme when he said that the extraordinarily talented pastry chef was responsible for turning around the fortunes of two old French gourmet institutions -- Fauchon and Laduree. Then he went on to create an international chain of gourmet patisseries. Herme will interact with the city's pastry chefs and gourmet bloggers at Le Cirque, The Leela Palace New Delhi's signature restaurant, on Monday, March 10.

Heir to four generations of an Alsatian bakery and pastry-making tradition, Herme is not a stranger to generous accolades. Paris Match magazine has called Herme the "magician with tastes", The New York Times hailed him as "The Kitchen Emperor" and The Guardian described him as "The King of Modern Pâtisserie".

Herme, 52, started apprenticing with the pastry-making legend, Gaston Lenotre, when he was 14, and then went on to revolutionise his craft with his original philosophy of taste, sensations and pleasure. He was the one, for instance, who promoted the idea of the use of sugar as salt -- "as a seasoning to heighten other shades of flavour".

When Desserts by Pierre Herme was released in 1999, the world therefore wasn't surprised to see him overturning established norms by marrying unusual ingredients, such as black pepper and an optional sliver of habanero in his Warm Chocolate and Banana Tart, or a basil chiffonade as garnishing for his Basmati Rice and Fruits-of-the-Moment Salad.

He is a thinking person's pastry chef and a successful business baron who made the idea of 'Patisserie Haute Couture' an international statement of style, which has powered the growth of his chain of pastry shops from Tokyo in 1998 to France, England, Hong Kong, Qatar and Dubai.

Before he launched his empire of taste, Herme was the pastry chef for 11 years for the French fine food merchant, Fauchon, and in 1997, he was powering the expansion of another French institution, the luxury bakery, Laduree. He brings to New Delhi this vast experience and he will be here to talk about his life's journey with "pleasure as the only guide".

DINING OUT: Bread & More Returns With Much More Pizzazz

QUICK BYTES

WHAT: Bread & More

WHERE: N-17, N-Block Market, Greater Kailash-I

WHEN: 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. (weekdays); 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. (weekends)

DIAL: +91 29246301

AVG. BILL STARTS AT: Rs 200 + VAT

STAR RATING: ****1/2

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

The Raspberry Melange is a star attraction at the
new and much-improved Bread & More, which
also has some genuinely artisan breads on its
menu and Delhi-NCR's best macarons. L'Opera
now has serious, decently priced competition.  

WHEN Pishori Lal Lamba and his brother-in-law, Iqbal Ghai, opened Kwality at the Regal Building in Connaught Place in 1940, the only items on their menu were ice-cream produced from a hand-cranked machine and milk shakes. The world was at war and India had been sucked into it. The contours of the conflict changed once the United States pitched in its lot with the Allies after Japanese kamikaze pilots bombed Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941. It also turned around the fortunes of Kwality.

American GIs arrived in thousands to defend India against a feared Japanese invasion and a large contingent of them were stationed in New Delhi, at barracks in Connaught Place. They just loved Kwality's vanilla ice-cream and one of the soldiers, a big fan of Lamba and Ghai, taught the brothers-in-law how to make sundaes. Soon, Kwality started serving cold coffee and sandwiches, and the patrons of the Regal theatre next door stopped by before each show.

The story came back to me as I was being taken round Bread & More by Divij Lamba, Pishori Lal's Yale- and Cornell-educated grandson who worked at Hillary Clinton's Senate office before joining his family's restaurant empire. The ice-cream, milk shakes and sundaes have made way for breads and croissants, confections, sandwiches, and single-origin coffees, whose nutty fragrance welcomes guests as they enter the store. Bread & More has been around since 1998, but its look and menu has just undergone a delicious makeover steered by Sahil Mehta, the first Indian to be certified by the prestigious Lenotre baking school  on the Champs-Elysées in Paris, and Umesh Sharma, the Kwality Group's bakery chef. The aromas, flirting with our nostrils and doing a little tango with the senses, revved up my appetite with their promise of good food. L'Opera now has serious competition -- both in quality and in prices.

The Lambas and their bakery team operating out of the Bread & More central commissary in Okhla Phase-II have gone to lengths to ensure authenticity with quality. The starter culture for their peasant bread, for instance, is from Paris, and  it is 75-80 years old. Not a drop of water goes into their focaccia; it's olive oil all the way, just as it would have been in Italy. The hard-crust artisan breads are baked in a stone oven with a mechanism for steam injection. It is this investment that has ensured that these breads are delightfully soft inside.

Even the quantities of yeast used is less -- 16 gm to a kilo of flour, compared with 30 per cent in most commercial breads -- because even though the dough may take a longer time to rise, it has a more delicate flavour and aroma. The simple pleasures of life, as they say, requires little ornamentation. And of course, the butter used is French because it is more malleable and spreads more easily.

The menu has 13 varieties of bread, including whole wheat and oat breads for diabetics, and four kinds of croissants (each uniformly crusty outside and melt-in-the-mouth inside), and it has the old favourites (nachos, sausage rolls and Black Forest), and you can also pick up a spicy chicken galette (the pancake-like bread from Brittany is a new addition to the city's culinary repertoire). For breakfast, you can have ham and soft fried egg on brioche with piping hot single-origin coffee. You may find the seating a little awkward because of space constraints, but it is best to have the croissants and sandwiches at the store. Go there on a weekend morning, or when 6 p.m. hunger pangs get the better of you.

Among all these temptations, and the procession of truffles and pralines and gateaux, the macarons, based on the recipe of the redoubtable Pierre Herme, are Delhi-NCR's best. They start with an almost imperceptible crunch and then just dissolve in the mouth releasing a bouquet of sensations. After you've had the salty caramel macarons, you'll keep wanting more.