A pastry chef, a scientist, a collaborator
When physics is put to the service of patisserie, the tasting experience becomes as disconcerting as it is delicious. Between the young pastry chef at Onor, Thierry Marx's new restaurant, Pierre Perrin, and physical chemist Raphaël Haumont, researcher at the French Center for Culinary Innovation and professor at Paris-Saclay University, a conversation takes place in which centrifuges, rotary evaporators, ultrasonic tanks and vacuum techniques become the pastry chef's new utensils. Two complementary universes with a common thread: ingredients, understood as close as possible to the molecules that make them up, for a new, committed vision of tomorrow's desserts. High-flying gourmet conversation!
Gault&Millau: Your collaboration is unusual. Tell us about how you met...
Pierre Perrin: I arrived at Onor as head pastry chef just five months ago, with my traditional pastry-making skills, but without knowing anything about Raphaël's approach. This encounter transformed my vision of pastry-making and of what I could do to bring out the taste of ingredients in a different way.
Raphaël Haumont: With each collaboration, and today with Pierre, my aim is to share my approach, to explain it simply with very concrete applications and the use of unexpected equipment for a pastry chef. With Ricardo Silva, the chef, we've been working for several years in collective brain mode to create new experiences in which the watchword is gourmandise.
G&M: How do you work together?
P. P.: Working alongside Raphaël and Ricardo, I'm learning to approach tastes, ingredients and pairings differently. I've discovered the action of ultrasound on molecules and of pressure on the development of a cake. I also realized that it was possible to make excellent desserts without using fats or sugar. I'm now familiarizing myself with this world, learning how these new utensils work and tasting what they can produce. It's extremely exciting.
R. H.: This laboratory is a real opportunity to experiment together with any ideas we may have. It's a place of exploration and creativity open to all Onor employees, where we can create and produce. Generally, I arrive with my database of what I call "foodpairing", i.e. foods that can go well together according to the common molecules they share. Ricardo and Pierre then let their imaginations and the season run wild. We try out new combinations, taste and adapt until we find the right balance and deliciousness on our plate.
G&M: How did you come up with the chocolate-cucumber pairing that is now offered in the "écuelle du moine", this rather unique tasting experience?
P. P.: We started with Raphaël's suggestion of a possible pairing between chocolate and cucumber. The chocolate brings a reassuring sweetness, the cucumber a lovely freshness. On paper, it's quite surprising. What's more, there's no sugar, just a chocolate and water siphon, cucumber jelly, dehydrated tagghiashe olive powder and smoked salt ice cream, all served under two thin, crisp leaves. It's an indulgent dessert, yet one that's not quite so clear-cut, thanks to the absence of sugar and the presence of cucumber.
R. H.: With this creation, there are no longer any boundaries between the cook, the pastry chef and the physicist. It's easy to make not a chocolate mousse, but a chocolate mousse by mixing chocolate and water in a siphon, the advantage of the siphon being that it allows air to be used as an ingredient. The result is a very light texture, evanescent in the mouth and intense in flavor. The cucumber and olives contribute to this unexpected harmony, which is generally either adored or not. We also play on contrasting textures and temperatures to bring relief to this dessert.
G&M: What's the most disruptive dessert you've imagined together?
P. P.: The chocolate ultra sponge cake that Raphaël calls "gâteau expansé sous vide", a very surprising chocolate cake for the pastry chef in me, since it's made without fat, sugar or baking. The ingredients are simple: chocolate, water and agar-agar are heated while stirring, before the mixture is placed in a siphon and then in a circle. The next step is to swell the cake using the sous vide technique. The idea is to inflate the gas bubbles by creating a vacuum, and the gelling agent helps to hold them in place.
R.H.: Without a doubt the eggplant, coffee praline and basil ice cream. We played on the green side of the eggplant with the basil, then on the warm, round notes of the grilled eggplant with the skin and just dried in tiles to make the link with the coffee praline. It's an incredible combination of tastes, textures and temperatures.
G&M: Collaboration: freedom or constraint?
P. P.: This collaboration opens up a whole new world of possibilities for me. The different techniques and new combinations turn my knowledge upside down. For certain desserts, I leave aside butter, cream, milk, eggs or sugar, and turn to physics to create textures and enhance taste.
R. H.: Thierry Marx and I have always liked to innovate through constraint. For example, by thinking up an egg-free soufflé. You have to understand why and how the appliance blows, and how to build it in such a way as to create a gourmet soufflé that blows, but without eggs. Using the siphon is part of the solution.
G&M: How would you define this exercise?
P. P.: It's a daily job that requires curiosity and time to understand the functions of each ingredient and master the techniques.
R. H.: It's an incredibly rich exchange of ideas, with Ricardo and Pierre, each of whom contributes his stone to the edifice. They know the combinations, and I enrich them with improbable combinations that need to be tested, but I don't bring ready-made recipes. The chef and pastry chef remain artists, who must develop their art to turn this scientific prediction into a successful dish and a source of emotion.
G&M: How do you see the patisserie of the future?
P. P.: Patisserie as we know it will always have its place, but it will be more creative, and the chef in me will have to surprise even more.
R. H.: What's innovative today will become classic in a few years' time, as is the case with all evolutions. I'm certain that the patisserie of the future will combine pleasure, innovation, well-being, health and respect for the planet.
Restaurant Onor
258, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, 75008 Paris.
www.onor -thierrymarx.com
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