When the bijouterie is a bonbonniere

Art Culinaire, Summer, 2005

"Baby pulled himself up on the smooth wall like a monkey, pushed in the cardboard without a sound, and stuck his head through. It was then that he became aware of the smell; he took a deep breath and up through his nostrils wafted an aroma of freshly baked cakes. It gave him a feeling of shy excitement, of remote tenderness, rather than of actual greed ... 'Its full of cakes in here!' exclaimed Baby, as if the other did not know. 'There isn't time for cakes,' said Dritto, pushing him aside. 'We've got to hurry.' And he went ahead, twisting the beam of his flashlight around in the dark. Everywhere it touched it lit up rows of shelves, and on the shelves rows of trays, and on the trays rows of cakes of every conceivable shape and color, tarts filled with cream that glittered like candle wax, piles of sugar-coated buns, and castles of almond cakes."

From the short story "Theft in a Pastry Shop" by Italo Calvino (reprinted with permission)

Diamonds are, apparently, forever, but the sweet give of a macaron floods more pleasure centers than tout le bling-bling du monde ever could. Chefs Pierre Herme and Francois Payard fill glass-fronted cases in Paris and New York, respectively, with exquisite baubles meant to last no more than a few perfect hours.

Tout Le Monde Desire Pierre Herme

aCCORDING TO PIERRE HERME, 2005 IS "the year of desire." To fully illustrate the concept, Herme recently unveiled his spring-summer 2005 collection of chocolates, cakes, plated desserts and macaroons at the storied Paris nightclub Crazy Horse, where well-endowed young women with exhibitionist tendencies lovingly paraded sweets down a dress designer's catwalk to the sound of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction."

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"I want to display chocolate as an article of value, like jewels," Herme has said of his signature style, in which his confections are exhibited in glass display cases, and since 1999 have been presented in elaborate, biannual live shows with such themes as "retrospectives and perspectives" and "kawaii", Japanese for "cute."

Like his friend Francois Payard, Herme was born into a family of pastry chefs, including his father, who owned a patisserie in Alsace, and who encouraged his son to teach him the skills and ideas gleaned from his apprenticeship in Paris, with Gaston Lenotre. Just 14 years old when he began to work with Lenotre, Herme says that what he learned at that time was "the very foundation of my knowledge in pastry. I learned what are good ingredients, what is technique, rigor, organization. It was an excellent classical base." Herme was an apprentice for two years, then stayed on for four additional years as an employee. He says that his style is quite different from that of his original teacher, but that "when I left Lenotre, it took me three to four years to find my own way of doing things." The chef began to develop his vision in the pastry kitchen of France's Minister of Defense, upon opening and running caterer Francois Clerc's pastry kitchen, and at the Carlton restaurant and the International Hotel in Belgium and Luxembourg, respectively.

In 1986, Herme returned to Paris and assumed the role of chef patissier at the esteemed Fauchon, where he first began to introduce his sweets in twice-yearly collections, and where he remained for 11 years before moving on to the equally revered Laduree. After about a year as the company's managing director of creative development, Herme says he "decided to have my own company, to develop my own brand." Contractually forbidden at that time by Laduree from opening a shop in Paris, he started instead by opening a bakery in a Tokyo hotel in 1998, followed by a tea salon, also in Tokyo, in 2000. Simultaneously, Herme entered into a relationship with Wegmans, an East Coast supermarket chain whose stores sell a line of Herme's chocolates, and for whom the chef has consulted closely on the management and development of the stores' patisseries. The chain, with voluminous, terra cotta and brick stores in the suburbs of New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland, may seem at odds with Herme's carefully-crafted aesthetic, but the chef says that what brings the two camps together is a commitment to good ingredients. "They are very concerned about quality," he says. "They use Valhrona[R] chocolate, they use hazelnuts from Piedmont and they have really good knowledge about pastry." In 2001, Herme was free to open his first Parisian shop, on the Left Bank, and a few years later he opened a second shop, near La Tour Eiffel. A third Tokyo store rounds out his retail collection, in which a total of 130 employees collectively run through 30 tons of chocolate annually. He has also just begun to teach a professional-level pastry course at the Gregoire Ferrandi cooking school, in Paris.

Herme was recently in New York to visit friends, attend a 20th anniversary celebration for specialty meat purveyor D'Artagnan, and of course, to try as many New York restaurants as possible. "I love the db burger!" he says, referring to the truffle, shortrib and foie gras sandwich prepared by his fellow Alsatian, Olivier Muller (AC issue 76), at db Bistro Moderne. Also on his short list were Rebecca Charles' lobster roll at Pearl Oyster Bar, Wylie Dufresne's eclectic menu at wd~50, and Christo's "Gates" installation in Central Park. "I spent a whole afternoon in the park," he says. "I loved it, the snow, the colors, and a little bit of wind in the gates. It was very impressive." He has long floated the idea of opening a shop in Manhattan but has no specific plans for such an expansion at the moment, saying simply, "It is a dream."