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.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: The Qube Adds Oomph to Coffee Shop Dining

Christophe Gillino, who has worked in the
kitchens of the French maestros Alain
Ducasse and Alain Senderens, has given
the menu at The Qube, The Leela Palace,
New Delhi, a brilliant creative spin 

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

NO FIVE-STAR hotel makes a serious attempt to raise the bar for the a la carte menu of its all-day restaurant, the coffee shop in popular parlance, because this institution has traditionally been known (and judged) by the quality of its buffet.

As we all must know by now, a buffet isn’t the most appetising way to have a memorable meal, unless of course someone in the hotel’s F&B department has put a lot of thought into making it special. It’s also commonly understood that if people order from the a la carte menu of an all-day restaurant, they would ask for a sandwich or a burger and maybe soup. Even The Qube at The Leela Palace in Chanakyapuri has been famous for its Angus burger, which is without doubt the best in the city.

The hotel’s executive chef, Christophe Gillino, a Frenchman from Avignon who arrived from Four Seasons Marrakesh some months back, all tanned and eager to tweak things, has taken the bold leap of faith to recast The Qube’s menu, pumping up its Mediterranean section (his years of work in Madeira and Monte Carlo coming in handy) and introducing his contemporary interpretations of French classics, which he mastered in the kitchens of the two doyens of the cuisine — Alain Ducasse and Alain Senderens.

When I first met Gillino (who's equally famous as the sound designer known in the business as Chris Milano), he said he wanted to make The Qube’s menu reflect the restaurant’s ambience — after all, the temperature-controlled glass box in which guests dine is a piece of architectural sophistication. I could appreciate Gillino’s sense of urgency. The Qube has been outperforming all the other restaurants in the hotel, so it makes sense to keep pumping up the oomph factor in its menu.

Gillino has not held himself back from introducing potentially popular choices. We have the schecciatta (pronounced as ‘Skee-ach-ATTA’), a flat bread that is as Tuscan (and as delicious) as Chianti; the sliders (mini burgers); the shawarma, a reflection of Gillino’s close association with the Arab world (his wife is Moroccan, for starters); chicken bento box, which presents different preparations of the Delhiite’s favourite meat in the cute Japanese version of the thali; and even items that’ll make you sit up and take notice, such as barbecued sea eel (unagi) with foie gras (this must rank as a most original inclusion in an all-day restaurant menu).

You’ll get a sense of the chef’s immense reserves of creativity from the spin he gives to French classics, starting with the silky and seductive bisque-bouille, which deconstructs the old-fashioned seafood soup, bouillabaisse, with catch from the Bay of Bengal. We have all had seared scallops, but Gillino lends the dish a summery lightness and a depth of flavour with the addition of guacamole and cucumber tartare. With the same dexterity, Gillino has enriched what could be a just a standard-issue pavé (prime grilled steak) of salmon with the addition of leek fondue, goat cheese, beetroot reduction and lentil risotto. This interplay of textures and flavours saves the dish from being condemned to ordinariness, which is usually its fate, especially if the salmon has been in the freezer for too long. For the chicken ravioli served in a rosemary-infused wine reduction with Parmesan cheese, Gillino has played with the style of presentation, making it rise above its commonplace pedigree.

The star of the show, though, is the five-spice lamb shoulder (a stylish harking back to the Moroccan tagine) with apricot confit, soft polenta and onion chutney — the competing tastes, like the music Gillino orchestrates, seamlessly complement each other. Now, if you believe this is the peak of indulgence, wait till you dig into Gillino’s Araguani orange chocolate (a 72 per cent dark beauty from Valrhona) hot pudding with a saffron apricot compote and Bailey’s ice-cream. That’s my idea of heaven on earth!