Claudia Fleming: former pastry chef savors Pret A Manger's sweet success

Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 2, 2002 by Amy Zuber

Despite a sweet tooth and an extensive pastry background, Claudia Fleming says she had fantasized for years about making sandwiches for a living.

That desire recently incited Fleming to leave New York's Gramercy Tavern, the top-rated restaurant in the 2003 New York Zagat survey, where she worked as the restaurant's pastry chef for eight years, and join Pret A Manger as food director for the chain's 24 restaurants in New York City.

Fleming, less than three months on the new job, already is overhauling the menu at Pret, a London-based concept that specializes in prepared cold sandwiches and has 140 units in the United Kingdom and three in Tokyo. The chain has expanded rapidly in New York over the last two years since fast-food giant McDonald's Corp. acquired a 33-percent stake in the company.

Fleming first trained in the pastry kitchen of Gramercy's older sibling, Union Square Cafe. From there she went to work at Tribeca Grill and then left for Europe, which led her to a job at the original Cosi in Paris, where she baked breads and other desserts in addition to sandwiches.

Title: food director of Pret A Manger, New York

Birth date: April 11, 1959

Hometown: Brentwood, N.Y.

Education: attended Peter Kump's New York Cooking School

Career highlights: working with Gramercy Tavern's chef, Tom Colicchio; winning the James Beard Award for "Outstanding Pastry Chef" in 2000; winning the 2002 Best Pastry Chef of the Year from Bon Appetit

Can you explain your fascination with sandwiches?

They are the ultimate and complete meal. They are portable and delicious if they are made well.

What other factors led you to take the post at Pret A Manger?

The people are incredibly enthusiastic and passionate and smart. It is a new company, so the energy is intoxicating and seductive. Eight years is a long time at a restaurant, and it takes its toll. I felt like I had made my mark at Gramercy, and I had done my best work. I needed a change. I was getting stale, and that wasn't fair to the restaurant or to me. But it is sad. It is like a relationship. My heart will always be with Gramercy. It is my first love and my first job as a pastry chef, which served me very, very well.

Can you describe your new role at Pret?

Basically, I have been told that I'm responsible for all the food and the development of sandwiches. But the longer I'm here, the more things I take on.

I'm also working with people in the supply chain for the chicken and pork and beef and salmon that we want to put in a sandwich or on a salad. Everything is assembled in the individual shops, so I'm working with manufacturers to get them to create what we want, which is very interesting and fun.

What are the major differences between your work environment at Pret and Gramercy?

Things don't happen in the corporate world the way that they do in a restaurant. I used to go into the restaurant in the morning and create a dessert and have it on the menu that night. Here it takes months for something to happen. Last week we planned an entire menu for next year.

Has the transition been tough?

I don't know. Get back to me in a couple of months. I'm very excited right now, and the challenge is what I wanted.

What are your goals over the next year?

To expand and upgrade the menu. The focus for the coming year is to expand the breakfast program and to really clean up the products and make sure that nothing has any additives or hormones in it. It really cuts down on shelf life, but it makes it fresh. It is our mission statement pretty much to serve healthful, natural, fresh, clean food. We don't say "fast food" here. We say quick meals, but it is the future of quick meals. People are really catching on that if you eat better, you feel better.

How do you get new menu ideas?

It is the same as when I was making desserts. I let the season dictate the menu, and then I get the best product at the best price.

How often does Pret's menu change?

Right now we are planning the menu for next year. Every month there will be one new sandwich and one revamped sandwich, so there are going to be two new sandwiches a month.

Can you give us an example of something you're working on right now?

The current ham sandwich has chutney, and it doesn't sell as well here as it does in the U.K. A lot of the sandwiches are direct imports that may or may not be selling as well as we would like, so we will look at the New York market. There hasn't been anyone doing that before.

Does it help that McDonald's has a minority interest in Pret?

I would say in terms of systems and efficiency of work, but other than that, no. They are geniuses at being efficient and working as quickly as possible in a safe way. They are currently doing a study to see if we can make our system more efficient.

Why did you originally decide to become a pastry chef?

I loved that it was a world within the restaurant industry. It is pretty independent, and there is a lot of autonomy in pastry. I also love dessert. I remember eating Pepperidge Farm cookies and Haagen-Dazs ice cream for dinner when I first moved to New York and couldn't afford much else.