French master pastry chef Gaston Lenotre, who built a worldwide empire with his gourmet dessert creations that defined modern patisserie, died Thursday at the age of 88. He passed away at his home in the central French region of Sologne after a long illness. President Nicolas Sarkozy said he was “one of the greatest masters of taste.” … ”Thanks to his talent and creativity, his rigour and excellence, he elevated patisserie to the rank of art form,” he said in a statement.
“We have lost a very great man,” said three-star chef Alain Ducasse, another ambassador for French cuisine who learned the art of pastry-making from Lenotre as a young man.
Born to parents who both worked as cooks in the northwest region of Eure, Lenotre opened his first pastry shop in Paris in 1957 in the rich 16th arrondissement of the French capital. Soon he attracted a loyal clientele with his mouth-watering array of mousses, macaroons and charlotte cakes and turned Lenotre into a brand name synonymous with fine patisserie.
Lenotre broke from traditional French pastry-making by inventing lighter creations such as his trademark “Succes” (Success) cake made with nougat cream and macaroons.
Cuisine was in his blood : his father was a chef at a upscale Paris hotel and his mother a private cook for the household of the baron Pereire, a wealthy French banker.
“French pastry-making taught me to be precise, to have discipline,” he once said in an interview. “If I see that things are sloppily done, I lose it.”
In 1960, he opened a catering service that would lay the foundation for an international food empire, with Lenotre boutiques now open in 12 countries including the United States, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Thailand.
Lenotre opened a pastry school in the Paris region in 1971 that welcomes some 3,000 chefs each year, and in 1976 took over Le Pre Catalan, a three-star restaurant and two other establishements.
“He taught us to be demanding, to share knowledge and to have a taste for what is beautiful and delicious.”
A father of three, Lenotre is also the author of several books on French pastry and cuisine.
Thanks for visiting
