Le Succès Berckois, a sweet treasure

Bérangère Chanel | 10/30/24, 1:08 PM

On the Côte d'Opale, a trip to Berck-sur-Mer has a delicious taste of childhood. It's not just the International Kite Festival that attracts visitors. You can also enjoy an enchanted interlude in the Succès Berckois store, a confectionery that, like one of Proust's madeleines, nourishes the fragrant memories of a weekend spent by the North Sea.

On the way back from the beach in Berck, we take the time to lose ourselves in a downtown Ali Baba's cave that smells of bergamot, banana, licorice and cherry. It's Jean-Yves Matifas', except that the owner certainly hasn't stolen his success. He is the sentinel of a savoir-faire that has been perpetuated since 1922. Like his forebears of Basque origin, who first called their sweets " bonbons des Pyrénées ", the confectioner carries out every stage of berlingot production by hand, right down to cutting with scissors. There are no machines here, either to work the sugar or to shape the famous successes. " If we had mechanized the work, we wouldn't be able to use fresh fruit or pieces of cookie," says Jean-Yves Matifas, proud to maintain methods dating back to the XIXᵉ century. Destined for a career as a sailor, he decided forty years ago to become the secular custodian when he acquired a taste for manual labor alongside his mother. Micheline Matifas taught him all the secrets of baked sugar.

In what is the oldest store in Berck-sur-Mer, berlingots can be sucked, but above all crunched, like this astonishing " graine de folie ", made from pumpkin seeds, linseed, sesame, sunflower and millet. " I was inspired by our local baker's cereal baguette. When you bite into it, you burst the seed and release all the flavors," says this fourth-generation representative at the helm of Le Succès Berckois. A gourmet experience guaranteed only by the absence of glucose. " With this corn derivative, the candy is hard. You can't crunch it, unlike mine, which crumbles under your molars. "

The recipe: water, crystal sugar made in the North of France, and " magic perlimpinpin ". Jean-Yves Matifas is keen to keep quiet about this little extra trick he uses to concoct the 38 flavors of his candies, which are distinguished from other French berlingots by their cushion-like shape and the absence of lines, as in Carpentras. The best-seller is the historic aniseed recipe. The most original is daring: with seaweed. The artisan imagines some of his successes as ingredients that, without complex, have the right to enter the kitchen. For example, he recommends crushing his berlingot made with nori and wakame, and placing a few flakes on an oyster. " I try to create one new fragrance a year, which I often unveil at the Rencontres internationales de cerfs-volants. "

In all, Le Succès Berckois produces between 3 and 4 tonnes of berlingots a year, many of them before the eyes of young and old alike, amazed by the dexterity of the master craftsman, who doesn't even use a thermometer when cooking the sugar. " I trust my ear, my eye and the shape of the bubbles ", he confides. Although he also has to work at night to keep his 90 m 2 store supplied, the confectioner is particularly keen on this direct production. " We don't want to hide anything! "says the artisan, considering it his duty to " safeguard France's culinary heritage ".

A beer that tastes like a berlingo

Never short of ideas, Jean-Yves Matifas offers a range of brews flavored with his favorite sweets. He has teamed up with the Micro-Brasserie des 2 Forts, located between Calais and Dunkirk. Apple tatin flambéed with calvados or raspberry-cassis for the blonde, gingerbread flambéed with whisky for the amber, melon for the white... Blocks of berlingots are added at the brewing stage before the beverage undergoes a month-long aging period.

Gault&Millau continues its sweet journey to discover the desserts that have shaped our gourmet heritage. All aboard, Simone, for a Paris-Brest trip that can be totally crazy!

Read