Vacherin cheese

Probably of Swiss origin, this meringue-based dessert was once a cake. According to La Grande Histoire de la pâtisserie-confiserie française, by S. G. Sender and Marcel Derrien (Minerva editions), it was perfected in its iced form in Lyon in the 19th century. Its fundamentals: a crunchy meringue, ice cream and/or sorbet and chantilly. After that, anything is possible.

The traditional version is often round and shared. On the restaurant menu, it becomes a sumptuous plated dessert. Pastry chefs vie with each other in the audacity with which they assemble flavors and dress up this dessert. As for its name, it comes from the cheese of the same name encased in a spruce box - an astonishing parallel! Gault&Millau meets the chefs, pastry chefs and chocolatiers who are bringing this classic pastry back to life.

• Thierry Keiflin, Boulogne-Billancourt

Hidden away in a small residential street in Boulogne-Billancourt, Thierry Keiflin and his daughter Déborah have set up their chocolate shop. Between the chocolate bars and candies, their homemade ice creams take pride of place, with the vacherin glacé taking pride of place. "The round-shaped vacherin is made on a French meringue base and features a raspberry sorbet combined with Madagascar bourbon vanilla ice cream and vanilla chantilly.

Because chocolate reigns supreme here, the artisan is working on a future interpretation with this flavor. As to which combination he'll choose, you'll have to come and taste it on the spot...

48, rue Danjou, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt

www.thierrykeiflin.com

• Pierre-Jean Quinonero, Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat

Here, vacherin is served as a dessert on a plate. In contrast to unstructured versions, this one from Pierre-Jean Quinonero, the new executive pastry chef, is visually like an elegant individual pastry, concealing singular flavor combinations and, above all, an unexpected temperature contrast.

"I've combined fountain and crème crue with raspberry sorbet. The fontainebleau brings animal notes, the crème crue a slight lactic acidity, which I reinforce with caramel and old balsamic vinegar." To add a fresh, floral touch, jasmine gel is added to the composition as a seasoning. To serve, the vacherin is accompanied by a tempered raspberry and balsamic vinegar jus. A revelation!

71, boulevard Général-de-Gaulle, 06230 Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

• Jean-Paul Hévin, Paris

This frozen dessert offers the chocolatier the opportunity to explore other flavors, even if the "Cacao" and "Chocolat" vacherins remain staples. The former contains a cocoa sorbet and the latter a cocoa sorbet combined with a 65% Peruvian chocolate parfait. "The vacherin glacé allows me to explore combinations that are more complex to work with in patisserie, such as raspberry and passion fruit, strawberry and yuzu and, this winter, chestnut combined with matcha.

Here, the vacherins have the rectangular shape of the house's pastries, an aesthetic choice that also facilitates cutting. In addition to the chantilly and meringue, the two layers of ice cream (generally a parfait and a sorbet) are placed on an almond cookie base. An interpretation not to be missed.

23 bis, avenue de La Motte-Picquet, 75007 Paris

www.jeanpaulhevin.com

• Guy Krenzer, Maison Lenôtre, Paris

Lenôtre

One of the house's great classics, created in 1964 with the ice cream parlour. Neglected for a few years, it's back with a vengeance, and in shape (it's round), with a chocolate-vanilla and raspberry-vanilla version for the winter collection. The large meringues are reminiscent of charlotte spoon cookies, and one of them features Madagascar bourbon vanilla ice cream and the other chocolate, while the fruity version has a bewitching raspberry sorbet.

For summer, the house's emblematic "Bayadère" (pistachio ice cream, strawberry and apricot sorbets), realized by head ice-cream maker Jean-Louis Bellemans, becomes a vacherin, a call to ultra-gourmandise that's hard to resist.

• Christophe Tuloup, Têtedoie restaurant, Lyon

At Christian Têtedoie, pastry chef Christophe Tuloup reinterprets this specialty as a destructured plated dessert. From the vacherin, he keeps the raspberry-cassis sorbet and the crunchy meringue, which he accompanies with a mousse and a basil-lime cream.

"I wanted to add a pastry touch to this vacherin with a mousse, cream, red fruit marmalade and fresh fruit. Basil adds seasoning to the whole" A combination of acidity, bitterness and vegetal notes, combining temperature contrasts and infinite deliciousness. To be discovered in the red fruit season.

4, rue Pierre-Marion, 69005 Lyon

www.tetedoie.com