Toulouse: find out who are the best pastry chefs according to food critic François Blanc
Gastronomic journalist, François Blanc has just published “La France des pâtisseries”. A second book which lists pastries in the regions and follows on from the “Paris of pastries”.
Gastronomic journalist, François Blanc has just published “La France des pâtisseries”. A second book which lists pastries in the regions and follows on from the “Paris of pastries”. Maintenance.
You have just written La France des Pâtisseries (Ed. Ducasse). What does this book say?
It lists the pastries in France and follows the work on Paris of Patisseries, published in September 2021. I went to the four corners of France to list about fifty addresses then classified into six regions. A way to identify the best local addresses and also to pay tribute to these men and women with incomparable know-how, often forgotten by guides.
For seven years you have been unearthing gourmet addresses in Paris. Why ?
At the start, I was a journalist specializing in culture, music and gastronomy. And then I met the manager of “Fou de Pâtisserie”, a magazine featuring the best of French pastry. I did not hesitate to lend my pen. Myself, a pastry chef in my spare time, sweet things immediately appealed to me.
In Toulouse, you listed two addresses: Perlette and Sandyan. Why these places?
I did not want to write a book on the most emblematic brands of the city but to pay tribute to the region and select addresses with a vision that is both classic and modern: Perlette, with the young pastry chef Jérôme Dijoux is a pastry that reinvents the great classics (Paris-Brest, pistachio eclair, peanut mille-feuille). Yannich Delpech’s Sandyan pastry shop is modern, with cakes in “watchmaking” presentation fresh from the lab to seduce the taste buds. Both are in tune with the times. For the occasion they have also created two pastries: The Sandyan has revisited the classic cake Fenetra made in trompe-l’oeil in the shape of an eggshell which contrasts with the classic cake known to Toulouse. As for the Perlette pastry shop, it has chosen a giant cookie.
Shouldn’t it have been easy to make a choice?
No. I went there and tasted a lot of cakes. A real marathon. Because obviously all the regions of France have talents with reinterpreted regional specialties: from kouign-amann or far, mythical Breton cakes, to Alsatian kouglof via the tropézienne (Saint-Tropez). Alsace is interesting for its festive traditional pastries and Marseille is slowly waking up. Unlike the city of Lyon, which does not seem to be too interested in sweets. As for the southwest, the variety of pastries is vast: Toulouse has the art of sweets with a number of emblematic brands and young emerging chefs. Baking traditions are often passed on in families from generation to generation.