Global Courant 2023-05-02 20:07:26
At the Park Hyatt hotel in Paris, Narae Kim combines the Nashi pear she grew up eating in Dangjin, South Korea, and the Williams pear often used in eau de vie into a standout dessert: a fan of Williams wedges, some marinated in jasmine tea and others cooked in bergamot oil, alongside quenelles of pear and cassava sorbet, all topped with small scoops of Nashi pear liqueur.
Ms. Kim wanted to study patisserie in France from an early age, taking patisserie and baking classes in high school and participating in grueling patisserie competitions in college in South Korea.
When Ms. Kim brainstorms about desserts, she always starts with fruits such as apricots, melons and cherries, which she picked from her family’s garden as a child, and builds on her ideas using the French pastry skills she has acquired throughout her career developed.
“I’m not thinking of making anything with a Korean twist,” she said. “It comes naturally.”
Ms. Kim, 33, is just one of many chefs born in South Korea who took French culinary training but created a distinct genre of pastry in the process. Though their paths differ, their work defines a growing confectionery category that is not limited to South Korea or France. It generates long queues, earns Michelin stars and exerts influence in the confectionery industry.
These chefs shape barely sweet, pillowy corn mousse into cartoonish cobs and impose pine nut praline to minimalist Mont Blanc. They season madeleines with soy sauce and plump financiers with sweet potato.
Their pastries are different from what customers can find Tous Les Jours or Paris baguettethe two beloved South Korean bakery chains which introduced the locals to sandwiches filled with hot dogs, fluffy cream buns and other unique French-Asian creations. Yet those bakeries were the gateway to the world of French pastry for some of the chefs who took that fusion further.
Enjoying one of those baked goods was as much of a Sunday ritual for Erica Abe as going to church in Seoul as a girl. After the service, her mother took her and her brother to pick out a treat at a nearby Paris Baguette.
“I think it was my first memory of loving pastries,” said Ms Abe, 37, the first Asian pastry chef of Benuthe renowned restaurant with tasting menu in San Francisco.
After learning about pastry chefs on TV as a teenager, Eunji Lee presented her parents with a 10-year plan to study in France that ended with her becoming “one of the best pastry chefs in the world.” She convinced them, but to understand French culinary technique, Mrs. Lee had to understand French.
She picked up French cookbooks to familiarize herself with the terminology before moving to Rouen to focus on baking in the Institut National de la Boulangerie Patisserie and on pastries Fernando Paris.
“Since my French wasn’t 100 percent perfect, if I wanted to take class and stuff, I had to study more than others,” says Ms. Lee, 35.
During her work she started experimenting with Korean ingredients such as sesame oil and red bean paste She Kitchen Gallery And Le Meurice in Paris. But she didn’t fully develop her take on patisserie until she was hired at Jungsik, the innovative Korean fine dining restaurant in New York City.
There she made her own version of the Paris-Brest with brown rice cream puffs and pecan praline, which she cheekily dubbed the NY-Seoul.
Ms. Lee has since honed her style Lysee, the pastry shop she opened nearly a year ago with her husband, chef Matthieu Lobry, in Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood. Inside you’ll find that emoji-esque corn mousse; the Lysée, her signature brown rice mousse cake, which looks like a mid-century Polly Pocket piece; and a fiery for each (the store sets a limit of one corn mousse per reservation).
Bomee Ki, who is from Gwangju, South Korea, studied pastry at the Le Cordon Bleu in London for a strategic reason: she understood English, not French.
Visa issues, a common obstacle for international chefs, brought her back to South Korea. She started a family with her husband, the chef Woongchul Park, and briefly considered leaving the stress of restaurant life behind. But she never forgot her pastry chef dreams.
After waiting almost a year for a business visa, she and Mr. Park returned to London to open Sollip, which received a Michelin star last year. Her pain perdu resembles a lava rock more than French toast: crunchy tuiles of seoritae, the nutty black soybeans, overlap and peak above a textural mound of seoritae ice cream, caramelized pecans, and vanilla-soaked brioche.
“We try to make our food based on French food, but we are Korean,” says Ms. Ki, 35. “We are used to Korean food and we are used to learning from Korean mothers. This is on our minds. This comes naturally ends up in our food, which makes our food and our place very special.”
Other pastry chefs, such as Yona Son, had to receive French training in less conventional ways. After graduating from culinary arts programs in Busan, South Korea, where she grew up, and in New York City, Ms. Son bought about 50 American and French cookbooks on biscuits, cakes, breads and professional patisserie, and watched famous pastry chefs such as Cédric Grolet and Amaury Guichon at work on YouTube.
Neither fully prepared her for a seven-and-a-half-year tenure at Jungsik in New York and Seoul.
“Because Jungsik is the first gourmet restaurant in Korea, there is no example of a modern Korean dessert,” said Ms. Son, adding, “I had to make everything from scratch since I had no samples.”
At her bakery in Seoul, Patisserie Armoni, she seasons financiers with sweet potato, black sesame and rice cake with beans, and hallabong, the Korean mandarin. She slathers her delicate shortbread cookies with ganache made from stir-fried soybean paste and caramel.
“Armoni is like ‘harmony’ with a French accent,” said Ms. Son, 33. “I wanted to explain the Korean things and European or American dessert things and bring them into harmony.”
For chefs born outside the United States entering the insular world of American fine dining, a sense of community is critical. Mrs. Abe had long admired Corey Lee, Benu’s chef.
“I felt a kind of kinship,” Mrs. Abe said. “He was Korean-American, like me, and he emigrated to America at a young age. He was so successful at what he did and I saw him as a role model.”
Following the menu’s Korean references for her desserts, she fills the flower-shaped hwagwaja, a traditional Korean cake made from white beans and rice, with a walnut praline and candied persimmon, and makes an adult version of the Korean snack cake called Choco Pie. with brandy, vanilla ice cream and a whole wheat dacquoise.
“It’s the first time in my career that I’m proud to represent Korean cuisine at such a high level,” said Ms. Abe.
In the West, where traditional Korean ingredients, techniques and desserts are not bound by the same cultural expectations, this style of pastry has been well received. But back in South Korea, it can be more of an adjustment for pastry chefs and customers.
Patisserie Jaein in Seoul is not just for takeaway treats or a convenient meeting place for friends as is common in densely populated cities across Asia. Jae In Lee, the pastry chef, refuses to sell coffee and adds Korean ingredients like burdock and soy sauce to otherwise traditional French products like mille-feuille and madeleines.
“Negative feedback always exists,” says Mr. Lee, 35. “‘Not as tasty as expected, too sweet, unkind, not selling coffee, et cetera.’ We turn negative feedback into good feedback as we perfect our style.”
For Ms. Son, of Patisserie Armoni, approaching potential customers who walk into her Seoul bakery has been a challenge. “They think doenjang is only with soup or sauces, but it can also be done with chocolate,” she said.
Yet she continues, building on what she and like-minded confectioners from South Korea have started.
“I want to make something that is not in the world.”
Jin Yu Young contributed translations.
