confiseur

Good point Judging panel member: Kate Johns, Nudge pr. William Curley's PR: Nudge pr. Hmmm..... J ps although WC chocolates ARE awfully nice though... ← ........good points...doesnt quite add up though...Kate Johns is also Paul Youngs PR and by all accounts he bombed and Melt are not even members of the chocolate academy.....could L'artisan have gone downhill since they stopped producing in London and moved to a factory in Kent?...Factory...Artisan.. ...maybe something has got lost in the translation?

....it looks like William Curley and suprisingly Melt who have only been open 8 months are the big winners of this years chocolate awards. Paul Young appears to have slipped a little with L'artisan not doing as well as expected... http://www.academyofchocolate.org.uk/winners/2006.html

...Keith has kept most of Damians stuff and added some ideas of his own...it makes for a very interesting mixture of styles...Damian wanted to set up his own business before Christmas but it has been delayed now untill early 2007. At present I believe he is demonstrating, teaching and doing some consulting work for Angala Hartnett.....

William Curley is very good but a little expensive. If you like yuzu, you can find it in some of his products. I think Paul Young may be better value for money, but when I visited it was mainly chocolates and not much pastry. Even when Claire Clark was there, the Wolsley was a bit "mittle european"; I am sure the French Laundry gives her more scope. All in all, I think Jon's list is very well informed and about right. Petrus ← Much like our lauded 'great' and 'world class' footballers in England our home grown pastry chefs do not do so well abroad...French Laundry or not Claire Clark did not make the cut to the last 50 of this years 10 best pastry chefs in the US in Pastry Art and Design magazine....

....actually the bloke at Melt is not Damian Allsop who left Melt in July to start his own business but Keith Hurdman an Anglo-Swiss chocolatier.....

right, he is the one with the school in florida right? ← .....who trained at Sprungli......Robert Linxe trained in Basel....

......favourite chocolatier?.....or favourite ganache maker?. Many of the quoted favourites on this thread, certainly the ones from the UK and many from France and the US produce mainly ganache based chocolates. Sorry dear readers, for me a chocolatier does not just make variations-on-a-theme chocolates. Honold in Zurich and Confiserie Frey in Basel are excellent examples of chocolatiers with 'all the skills'. Shock/horror say all the Francophiles...but the best truffles in Europe..bar none.. are Truffes du Jour made by Confiserie Sprungli on Paradeplatz in Zurich...made and sold on the day of manufacture...nothing I have ever tried has even come close...though Melt in Notting Hill is making a valiant effort.

......I believe the Academy of Culinary Arts in the UK has been trying to promote some of their competitions as equal to the French MOF qualification ...however they are notoriously political with allegations of cheating and biased judging overshadowing the process and therefore do not gain any respect within the trade.

........have not forgotton this one!.....the book is excellent in short...if written in v. small print ( a minor quibble)...however in my present incarnation as Exec. pastry Chef of a central London 5 star I am somewhat pushed for time at the moment...oh and also being in the middle of a house purchase, time is at a premium at the moment.... Initial impression is that this book should be on every professionals bookshelf and is well worth the money...100 of her majestys British pounds so not cheap dear readers...

...........with regard to 'MELT' in Notting Hill an important factor in its immediate success is the fact that Bill McCarrick, an immensely talented AMERICAN! pastry chef has been a major figure in the background. This guy is extremely gifted but modest with it and thus appears very rarely under the general public.

.........ha!...just listened to my voice mail and the Torreblanca book has arrived . I wont be able to pick it up for a week or so but when I do and get the time to properly look at it I will of course post on it.

........to clear up any misunderstandings.......cakes,sponges etc do not magically get 'moister' in the fridge/freezer...what happens is there is a migration of moisture from the centre of the cake to the crumb...you can test this yourself by trying a frehly baked madeira or genoise sponge fresh from the oven and then comparing it with one which has been kept in the fridge or even held at a cool ambient temperature (13-18 degrees c) for 24 hours. The freshly baked cake, as palatable as it is has a far dryer mouth-feel than the 'older' cake.

www.booksforcooks.com ........which is the biggest and best store in London for all food related literature. They have of course great contacts to publishers everywhere....I have ordered the greatly anticipated Paco Torreblanca book in English through them which is due to arrive shortly.

Its a good book no question...I am going to wait for the English version though which is due to come out Feb. 2007.

[ Ritz: do they kick you out after xx minutes ? ←

Browns is very good indeed now after the refurbishment ( I didnt know how it was before). Really good cakes and pastries with a mixture of traditional ( Dundee cake and Victoria sponge from the trolley) and not typical 'French style' pastries..only negative...tea is from a German company.. .for an English traditional afternoon tea? .The Ritz is great but do you enjoy 'sittings'? (they serve 'afternoon' teas from 10.45 till 7.30!). Lanesborough and Claridges also very good. None of the places mentioned on this thread though hold a candle to Bettys in York/Harrogate and Ilkley.

.....depressingly for me the above post hits it bang on the nail. There are very few top class British pastry chefs and the majority work in hotels,very rarely as in Williiam Curleys case does one branch out into opening their own business

....not strictly in Edinburgh itself, about a 15-20 minute drive away is La Potiniere in Gullane, East Lothian...run by Mary Runciman and Keith Marley. Ms Runciman cooks brilliantly but is exceedingly shy so you wont be seeing her on TV.

......for tea ,cakes, and pastrys the Lanesborough, Browns and Claridges are very good,also the Tea Palace as mentioned..the Wolseley is fine, if a little cramped.

....Sorry to take so long to get back to this...have been in St Petersburg doing some consulting work where I also encountered a similar problem...there is, no doubt to the suprise of many some startlingly good work in Russian available but obviously printed in the native language... (...yes, I know-the smartarse reply would be... 'learn Russian'..however the majority of pastry chefs I know here in Europe do not have the inclination and certainly not the time to get their head around the cyrillic alphabet... no doubt with exceptions it is the same on your side of the pond...) I was informed by the author of the one book in Russia I was impressed with that they were convinced there would be no demand for the material to be translated...similarly with Paco Torreblanca who has no plans for his book to be published in another language, though his publisher was quite enthusiastic about the idea he himself is convinced that there is not enough demand in the English speaking world... The upshot of this is that if enough people mail Paco and let him know there is a demand he just might change his mind....For interested parties.....www.pacotorreblanca.com

.....some bads news...At a chocolate demonstration in Brussels recentlyI managed to catch up againwith the great Spanish patissier Paco Torreblanca. Unfortunately he is not planning to have his books translated into English as he is convinced there is no demand. I tried in vain to convince him otherwise but no luck,he was not convinced with my argument that I would buy 3 copies to start him off!...Suggestions please..

.......some very succinct observations here...and nice pictures too...makes me more than ever determined to visit Tokyo this year.Well done Sir!

I think we'd all agree that it's good compared with what else is generally available in London. ← Methinks a trip out to Richmond is in order....William Curley is producing patisserie there of a far higher standard than the technically very competent but over-hyped fare of Laduree.

so..... Sauce: MPW Fish: Fredy Girardet Larder:Gordon Ramsey Veg: Hans Stucki Pastry: Gaston Lenotre On the pass would be Paul Bocuse and I would happily do the KP for free

..........an interesting ,if depressing topic (the salary that is)....at least you can console yourself that in the States there are at least a few super-star salarys paid...here on the other side of the pond everyone earns peanuts.