‘When I started to make macarons, I didn’t like macarons,’ says macaron guru Pierre Herme
He explains why during a recent visit to Singapore for the Pierre Herme Paris opening at RWS.
Pierre Herme Paris’ first flagship store in Southeast Asia opened last month at Resorts World Sentosa. And with its two storeys of pastries and dining, is now the brand’s largest flagship in the world.
An ice cream bar, a barista station with bubble tea, a chocolate enclave, jams, pastries, viennoiseries and more cakes and macarons than you can count – the store is a pastel-hued sweets lover’s paradise.
And, when we visited, there was Pierre Herme himself, peering intently at all the display cases filled with pretty, tasty things.
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Why he didn’t enjoy macarons initially
The legendary French chef, who says he specialises in “pleasure”, is a perfectionist: He wanted to make sure that everything was the way he himself liked it.
Seeing as he’s known the world over for what he’s done for the PR reputation of macarons, and says the pastry is his “favourite form of expression”, he made our jaw drop when he said, solemnly: “When I started to make macarons, I didn’t like macarons”.
“It’s a long story,” he chuckled. “At the time, we had four flavours: Vanilla, chocolate, coffee and raspberry. And the filling was just to stick the shells together. For me, it was a bit sweet and did not have enough flavour power.
“That’s why, when I started to make my own macaron, I decided to fill it more; to have a very generous filling. And, to work on the intensity of the filling, to have a very strong flavour. I started to develop a single flavour and also combination of flavours and textures, also. So, I created a lot of different recipes and new combinations of flavours.”
And create them he did. The macaron smorgasbord in the shop ranges from Pierre Herme classics like Mogador, a match of passionfruit and milk chocolate; Ispahan, a combination of rose, lychee and raspberry; and Infiniment Vanille, Herme’s reminder that vanilla can be so much more than you think; to more avant-garde flavours like a black olive macaron and even a macaron of pea and mint.
Some pastries have romantically literary names, like a macaron named Jardin de Godot or Godot’s Garden, in reference to the play Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett; and a cake named for Orpheus of Greek mythology.
But they all taste like finesse: You immediately perceive the quality in ingredients like the rose petal essence which he has sourced from the same production facility in France since the 1980s, he told us.
“I tried to make it the way I thought was good. Somebody else will do it differently,” Herme shrugged, modestly.
What makes the perfect macaron?
What, then, defines the perfect macaron? “It’s a combination of different sensations,” he asserted. First, when you bite into it, the crisp shell; then, the creamy filling; and finally, the taste of the filling. “It’s the combination of sensation and texture and intensity of the taste that makes the macaron perfect.”
To achieve that, of course, “You have to follow some precise steps and precise timing, with precise skill. It’s simple but needs to be precise.”
The rigour with which he upholds precision is evident in every pastry offering and menu item, even down to the freshly handmade vegan cones for the ice cream bar, or the bubble tea “the way I like it” – which means, of course, that great care is taken when it comes to the quality of the ingredients and the intensity of the flavours. Even the tapioca pearls, for instance, are infused with tea when they are made, and have a unique texture.
If there’s one pastry that takes him back to his childhood, it’s the thought of the tarte aux quetsches his father made, a specialty of his native Alsace that uses Alsatian plums.
Tried chendol and putu piring in Singapore
These days, “I prefer to discover. I’m happy to discover new flavours, new textures."
For instance, “Today, I tried some very interesting desserts.” Chendol was one: The pandan and coconut milk shaved ice “was good”. Another was putu piring, steamed cakes of rice flour filled with palm sugar and topped with grated coconut. “The texture was interesting, and it was a little bit warm – you get it directly from the steamer.”
If he could go back in time and give his younger self advice, he mused, he’d say, “‘Do the same things’. I was very curious, very passionate, and I wanted to learn anything and everything. I was very dedicated to my craft.”
Pierre Herme Paris in Singapore is at 26 Sentosa Gateway #01-234.
Source: CNA/my
Photos: CNA/Joyee Koo
The original version of this story first appeared in CNA Lifestyle.
For more CNA Lifestyle stories, visit https://www.cnalifestyle.com/.
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