Speaker 1: My name is Jeffrey z Carrian, and you're listening to
Speaker 1: four Courses with Jeffrey Z Carrian from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: In four courses, I'll be taking you along for the
Speaker 1: ride while I talk with the top talent of our time.
Speaker 1: In each conversation, I focus on four different areas from
Speaker 1: my guests life and career. And during those four courses,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna dig deep in and cover new insights and
Speaker 1: inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
Speaker 1: push forward. My guest for this episode has spent more
Speaker 1: than twenty years in the highest pressure positions in the
Speaker 1: world of pastry, has recently built a brand new workshop
Speaker 1: to teach and produce his blend of precise and creative baking,
Speaker 1: and he may be the very first chef to ever
Speaker 1: have one specific pastry go viral and become a cultural phenomenon.
Speaker 1: Without further delay, Please enjoy my conversation with Chef Dominique
Speaker 1: on cell Chef Jeffrey going, you're definitely busier than I am.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true, but it's going great.
Speaker 1: I've been pretty busy for sure. Thank you for taking
Speaker 1: this time. My gosh, I haven't seen your spoken to
Speaker 1: you in so long. Yes, I know, and that's just YouTube.
Speaker 1: For my first course, Dominick explains his humble beginnings from
Speaker 1: living with a big family on a single income to
Speaker 1: learning century all techniques for corssant making. Right. My mom
Speaker 1: was a terrible cooking she was. She was bad. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, how is that possible? You know, not just
Speaker 1: not because she's French, that's she's good at cooking. She
Speaker 1: just didn't like it. No, I think that that's pretty
Speaker 1: bad for me to think that, But I think it.
Speaker 1: All French women are good at cooking. I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: my mom was not. She was maybe one of the
Speaker 1: existion and you know, but my girldmo was good. She
Speaker 1: was not like exceptional, but she was good. She enjoyed cooking,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's probably one of the things that
Speaker 1: got me to become a chef. Actually, like spend some
Speaker 1: time in the kitchen when I was younger, because I
Speaker 1: couldn't stand eating my mom's food. Oh wow. Not because
Speaker 1: the quality of the food she was buying was bad,
Speaker 1: just because the way she was cooking was bad and
Speaker 1: she didn't enjoy it at all. So, and your dad
Speaker 1: was busy working my dad was working. He was working
Speaker 1: in a factory, and it was always pulling like books
Speaker 1: and cookbooks and looking at recipes and I was like
Speaker 1: excited about it, but like eating better. I guess I
Speaker 1: grew up very humbly. I only had one salary of
Speaker 1: a factory walker, which was like pretty much a minimum
Speaker 1: wage living on a family of you know, six people
Speaker 1: plus the grandma. At some point, my cousins lived with us,
Speaker 1: and the dogs, the cats and everything else that it was.
Speaker 1: It was a strange time. You know. We didn't always
Speaker 1: have like a lot of food on table, and not
Speaker 1: always enough at the end of the month because there
Speaker 1: you know, in France, you get paid once a month
Speaker 1: and you have to manage very carefully your your money
Speaker 1: so you have it until the end of the month,
Speaker 1: which was not always a case for us. But you know,
Speaker 1: like they made me grow up like humble and careful
Speaker 1: with that money, with that food at not Westing as well.
Speaker 1: You were born north of Paris, but it seems that
Speaker 1: Paris was sort of the thing that, like everyone else,
Speaker 1: was sort of your very major commitment to the pastry world.
Speaker 1: And you went and worked with an incredible I know,
Speaker 1: I know the pastry shop is just there's so many
Speaker 1: of them, by the way, people don't understand. And France
Speaker 1: there's all these amazing artisanal pastry shops and bakers that
Speaker 1: each one of them have their own incredible story, and
Speaker 1: each one of them are you know, the degree of
Speaker 1: excellence is extraordinary. So describe this sort of place. It's
Speaker 1: one of the oldest in Paris, and describe sort of
Speaker 1: always struck by the smell and the sort of how
Speaker 1: tight the quarters were and how hard it was, and
Speaker 1: how difficult that they exist in conditions that today would
Speaker 1: be like brutal. You know, we would never you would
Speaker 1: never work in those conditions because you know, the stairs
Speaker 1: had no treads, there was water everywhere. You had one
Speaker 1: square meter to work and it was and you're like, what,
Speaker 1: how is this possible? Exactly? So, yeah, when I came
Speaker 1: back from my military service, I'm from a small town.
Speaker 1: For us, like it's not just like kind of like charming,
Speaker 1: beautiful town like people getting picture in France. It's it's
Speaker 1: you know, I grew up in a project. My parents
Speaker 1: had no money. I grew up you know, like very humbly.
Speaker 1: So when I came back, I decided I didn't want
Speaker 1: this life. I didn't want to stay there, and I
Speaker 1: was a young kid with like big dreams. I decided
Speaker 1: to go to the big city. And I had about
Speaker 1: two thousands loss of saving which I had saving like
Speaker 1: four years, and that's what I had. I went to Paris.
Speaker 1: I found a tiny little card that was falling apart,
Speaker 1: which I bought, and I was driving from my hometown
Speaker 1: to Paris, which was about like an how and and
Speaker 1: a half drive back and forth. I found myself like
Speaker 1: completely lost in the big city driving around. Everything was
Speaker 1: going too fast. People were talking to fast, driving too fast.
Speaker 1: There was so many streets. Everything was going like crazy
Speaker 1: for me, but you know, I like the energy. I
Speaker 1: started dropping up resumes driving around being lost. Every time
Speaker 1: big we will pop my car and drop off resume.
Speaker 1: Eventually got a bunch of job offer. I landed a
Speaker 1: job in Pelty. So Pelty is one of the oldest
Speaker 1: pistry shop in Paris. It was it's closed now unfortunately,
Speaker 1: beautiful pistry shop. Everything like handmade, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: a life and pressure test. I started my job there.
Speaker 1: I remember that I did my trail. The person I
Speaker 1: was in charge called me in a corner of the kitchen.
Speaker 1: Towards the end of my trail, he was like, do
Speaker 1: you see the guy there? I was like yes, I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, you just started a week ago. I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, it's like it's you or it's him.
Speaker 1: You want a job, you can do it really subtle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no filters. So of course I did a good job
Speaker 1: and I started started immediately and to this letter, the
Speaker 1: guy that was there, I was gone, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: so I took his job. I guess I was working
Speaker 1: making questions there. First thing. Yeah, the first day and
Speaker 1: first the only thing I did during my time. They
Speaker 1: spent a year there. The most beautiful cossan I probably
Speaker 1: ever seen. So the technique for making the costs on there,
Speaker 1: I was really unique and really special. So regular corssando,
Speaker 1: you'll make the door and then you will have a
Speaker 1: block of butter that you put in the center. That's
Speaker 1: how I then you do your fall. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: classical way. So the way that we were doing it
Speaker 1: there is that we have the door, we have the
Speaker 1: butter that we split in half. The butter is pliable,
Speaker 1: it's a room temperature, so you pretty much like spread
Speaker 1: it into your hands until it's a pliable and you
Speaker 1: put it with your fingers and you rub it along
Speaker 1: the door, so you're putting you in your hands almost
Speaker 1: like play dough, and describe the butter onto the door
Speaker 1: and you make a thin you create a thin layer.
Speaker 1: It's a sort of like weird as a technique. And
Speaker 1: even now thinking about it, even not talking about them,
Speaker 1: like what were we doing it this way? I have
Speaker 1: never seen question that beautiful. So we're doing in the
Speaker 1: first time for doing a fold, putting in the fridge.
Speaker 1: Now later we're doing the same thing one more time
Speaker 1: with the second half of the better and that's it.
Speaker 1: And this is the most honestly the most beautiful question
Speaker 1: was in even you know, like throughout the years I've
Speaker 1: been doing this for like almost thirty years, I tried
Speaker 1: to replicate the same technique with similar ingredients. I was
Speaker 1: never able to Wow, So I'm not sure what it
Speaker 1: was exactly. I think it has to do with, you know,
Speaker 1: the type of flower use, the type of better use.
Speaker 1: And at the time, you know, I don't remember what type.
Speaker 1: I still have the recipe, I don't remember what type
Speaker 1: of ingredients were using. This is you should do a
Speaker 1: dominic workshop. You should have just a room dedicated to
Speaker 1: figuring that out. That's that's more than dedication passion. It
Speaker 1: takes like ours to do. But I can tell you
Speaker 1: like they're they were really beautiful gus On. So what
Speaker 1: who developed that? It was missed up Peltier at the time.
Speaker 1: I mean he opened the shop, I believe in the
Speaker 1: late Yeah, he developed this technique, probably because back then,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not making pluques of butter. We had
Speaker 1: had the big cases of butter and you wanted to
Speaker 1: find a way to make it thin and later, So
Speaker 1: I believe it's him. I'm not even sure what the
Speaker 1: technique is coming from, but I know it was very
Speaker 1: unique technique, very time consuming technique, but the result was
Speaker 1: like really unique and special. For my second course, Dominick
Speaker 1: explains what he learned from rising to the top of
Speaker 1: one of Paris's most respected bakeries while I was still
Speaker 1: in his early twenties. So after after you left particulately Peltier,
Speaker 1: you went to Sean directly. At the time, it's what
Speaker 1: everyone was doing, right. You walk into the shop, you
Speaker 1: asked if the chef is here, and she's like, do
Speaker 1: you have an opportent? It was like, no, but I
Speaker 1: have reasume I'm looking for a job. So the chef
Speaker 1: took me to the office like by the way, I
Speaker 1: asked me a bunch of questions. He was like, can
Speaker 1: you start Monday? And I was like, uh, okay. So
Speaker 1: I started that Monday. I remember exactly September one. I
Speaker 1: was one of thirty people higher the same day, which
Speaker 1: I was not aware of, the call us all in
Speaker 1: the room. They told us that they will keep only
Speaker 1: three people at the end of the four months. When
Speaker 1: they told us to got to keep chen and show
Speaker 1: show our best. Two weeks before the end, so towards
Speaker 1: the end of December, they call us all in the room.
Speaker 1: There was a few lists of us already because some
Speaker 1: of the back quit, but still a good like. Plus,
Speaker 1: they told us that they didn't have any three spots
Speaker 1: for us. They only had one. And I think two
Speaker 1: days before the end, the chefs called me in the
Speaker 1: office and they told me they want to keep me. Wow,
Speaker 1: were you like experienced in savory at Fauchan or just
Speaker 1: they we were you working with station? Were you working everything? No?
Speaker 1: I was in pastry department and the pastory of the
Speaker 1: department was about like thirty people in normal time. Thirty
Speaker 1: that's a that's a large department, that's a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I started as a pastry cook, so I started
Speaker 1: from zero. I was promoted as chef the party after
Speaker 1: eight months. So chef the party, you're in charge of
Speaker 1: the station was just made to be. It was it
Speaker 1: was made that this was what you were going to
Speaker 1: be doing your whole life. Yeah. I was twenty years old,
Speaker 1: my guy, and at that time was unsure if I
Speaker 1: want to do it. And I was in charge of
Speaker 1: six people already, So at six people under me, after
Speaker 1: two years, I was promoted to a sous chef position.
Speaker 1: I was still one of the youngest. I was promoted
Speaker 1: as a chef there. So I had a d twenty
Speaker 1: people under me. I was twenty four years old. So
Speaker 1: things that just doesn't happen with me very fast, that
Speaker 1: doesn't doesn't happen. That does not happen. I mean, but
Speaker 1: a hundred people you're working for it. So did you
Speaker 1: move around Paris? Did you move from did you go
Speaker 1: open up a store, come back, open up another store,
Speaker 1: come back? How does that happen? So I was I
Speaker 1: was doing a lot of things there. I was in
Speaker 1: charge of the many development and the production. So I
Speaker 1: was just in between. And that's the trickiest part because
Speaker 1: I mean, first, most of the stuff were older than me,
Speaker 1: probably ninety five per some of the stuff was older
Speaker 1: than me. Yeah, they don't like that, right, No, I
Speaker 1: didn't like that. They don't like the young kid that
Speaker 1: comes tell me what to do. But I had to
Speaker 1: find my way. I actually get a lot of respect
Speaker 1: from the team. I was very kind, very supportive and
Speaker 1: very very honest with them. So I always like implement
Speaker 1: new recipes and we changed like pretty much everything in
Speaker 1: the kitchen. So it was hard, it really for like
Speaker 1: an old school like French chef to listen to younger
Speaker 1: chef and to change everything, and and to listen to
Speaker 1: like which way they wanted to be done. And what
Speaker 1: did you when you say you change everything? I mean
Speaker 1: obviously for Sean has these amazing recipes that are like
Speaker 1: a century old, probably what was wrong with them? But
Speaker 1: nothing was wrong. We just changed the entire menu, so
Speaker 1: new creations, new menu of course, some new tools, some
Speaker 1: new techniques, some new ingredients. So I have to retrain
Speaker 1: everyone on everything and that the scene was used to
Speaker 1: do in a certain way. So I was the one
Speaker 1: who was in charge of like changing them along with
Speaker 1: with the menu. Who is your mentor? Who who is
Speaker 1: that person that you went to and said, what am
Speaker 1: I doing wrong? What am I I don't like what
Speaker 1: I'm doing right now? Or I like what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I just want to do better. That's a very interesting question. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I've never had this person. I've never one had, never
Speaker 1: had someone out to look up to, someone to ask
Speaker 1: advice to, someone to guide me, someone to like put
Speaker 1: me back on track. I mean I learned the hard way.
Speaker 1: I learned also the most like humble way to to
Speaker 1: work with people and and to listen to them. There
Speaker 1: were people like that didn't want to change anything for anyone,
Speaker 1: even for execut chef. They were like screaming contest and
Speaker 1: the kitchen and they will send me to change them,
Speaker 1: to ask them to change something because they know they
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. I will go and you know, just
Speaker 1: like with myself, and I was still telling them what
Speaker 1: I want to do and why I want to do
Speaker 1: this way. I will come earlier walk with them, and
Speaker 1: they were like just follow my lead naturally because I was,
Speaker 1: you know, a soft spoken and I was hard walking,
Speaker 1: but you're also a gentle and you you know, when
Speaker 1: someone doesn't want to do something, you you took the
Speaker 1: time to explain why the reasoning behind it is. And
Speaker 1: you don't have to do that. You could come and say,
Speaker 1: I'm your boss, I'm just telling you to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I was happening the kitchen. That's that wasn't
Speaker 1: up walking. You know, as you get older and as
Speaker 1: you what you're doing now is you're probably the most
Speaker 1: remarkable mentor in the world because you didn't have it right.
Speaker 1: And I see myself as always going the extra level.
Speaker 1: Let me let me explain to you for the fourth
Speaker 1: time why this is the way it is, because it's
Speaker 1: important to let they need to know this for their future.
Speaker 1: You're not doing it for yourself, You're doing it for them.
Speaker 1: It's just I think it breeds a different human being, right,
Speaker 1: I think so completely. It's it's it's a matter of
Speaker 1: like maturity and personality. You have to be humble, you
Speaker 1: have to be kind two people, and you have to
Speaker 1: be able, you know, like I said, listen, be able
Speaker 1: to listen only like takes you like so far. And
Speaker 1: you know, after after two years doing this, I was
Speaker 1: traveling for the brand opening shops around the world. Where
Speaker 1: was that? Like? That was amazing? I loved it. I
Speaker 1: love traveling. I love discovering new cultures and meeting new people.
Speaker 1: It was really really hard, for example, again into Russia
Speaker 1: to open as on there, I had a translator by
Speaker 1: translators stay therefore day one, the next day she didn't
Speaker 1: show up. Apparently she was fired. I was told that
Speaker 1: a new translator was coming and never seen a translator again.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. So I got hard. At the time
Speaker 1: a small a Russian and French dictionary, learning a little
Speaker 1: bit of Russian, so I would communicate this way with them.
Speaker 1: But it was that was tough. That was really tough
Speaker 1: when you have to like put up like like a
Speaker 1: whole new menu trend. People be so specific and technical
Speaker 1: and scientific, but but making and what's it like on
Speaker 1: the first day you do your test opening and you
Speaker 1: everything is in the display case and all the team
Speaker 1: looks and feels so proud of going from zero to
Speaker 1: this amazing array of desserts, and then you open to
Speaker 1: the public. I mean, it's it's amazing, you know, like
Speaker 1: still with every opening we do know day still feel
Speaker 1: the same feeling the feeling of pride, accomplishment of like
Speaker 1: building something together, the feeling of like team spirit, you know,
Speaker 1: like this little family that you build at all so
Speaker 1: much walk and and you know, sleepless like nights, and
Speaker 1: it's it's so much work. It's so much intense, you know,
Speaker 1: I know when people come the happy, the winksto must
Speaker 1: come the happy, they buy staff, they eat it, you know,
Speaker 1: they go home. For us, it's like, you know, month
Speaker 1: and month of building of like fighting, of like it's
Speaker 1: a lot of commitment. It's so much walk. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: what people don't understand when you see your friend and
Speaker 1: that day one or two of the opening, it looks
Speaker 1: like they're ready for the hospital. Yes, and they're excited,
Speaker 1: but they just they they just haven't slept in four
Speaker 1: weeks maybe more. It takes a good six months before
Speaker 1: they start to look themselves again. For our third course,
Speaker 1: Dominic and I discuss something that we have in common
Speaker 1: working for the legendary chef Danielle Blue. So when you
Speaker 1: finally came to New York in two thousand, I think
Speaker 1: it was six, right, that's right, and you went to
Speaker 1: work for Danielle, you'd already opened stores in different countries.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have such an incredible experience that most
Speaker 1: pastry chefs would only dream of having. And honestly, you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you enter that world of corporations, you
Speaker 1: rarely come out of that world. You stay there because
Speaker 1: it becomes comfortable. There's nothing wrong with that. You might
Speaker 1: want to be a family, you might want to work,
Speaker 1: you know, a five day week instead of a seven
Speaker 1: day week. But it's very unusual to sort of jump
Speaker 1: out of that world in a successful way and parachute
Speaker 1: into a completely different experience and going back to just
Speaker 1: focusing on one restaurant, on one person. Why Danielle and
Speaker 1: why New York. Well, at the time, I wasn't for
Speaker 1: Sean for eight years and that's a long time. That's
Speaker 1: a long time. And I've done I mean a group
Speaker 1: from a young kid to being the coporate pistry chef
Speaker 1: to traveling the world opening shops. You know I have,
Speaker 1: I've learned so much, Like that's one of my best
Speaker 1: life experience. I have to say, not just walk, but
Speaker 1: life and I want something new. I wanted I was
Speaker 1: always excited about traveling, and I always wanting to live
Speaker 1: in different countries. So of course, New York for any
Speaker 1: any French kid, I guess it's just like the city
Speaker 1: of dream and opportunities. So I wanted to come to
Speaker 1: New York and this came. I came to me Danielle
Speaker 1: I know, Daniel called me, which hadded for almost two
Speaker 1: hours on the fun you know. I told him that
Speaker 1: I had no experience really walking in in a finning
Speaker 1: restaurants at this pastry level. And I came to New
Speaker 1: York and I know I did a testing for him,
Speaker 1: and I had prepared for me like five or six
Speaker 1: desserts plus at fools and a tremor and some of
Speaker 1: the stuff. I was giving the first plate, clear everything out.
Speaker 1: It looks like he wasn't joying himself. I bring the
Speaker 1: second desserts. I remember like standing up next to him.
Speaker 1: He was sitting down eating the is and he looked
Speaker 1: up at me. He was like, so when can you
Speaker 1: start thrown off that? Excuse me? It was like when
Speaker 1: can you start with us? Was like, oh, do you
Speaker 1: want to finish the testing first? And I was like,
Speaker 1: my job of her right there? Right. Eight weeks later,
Speaker 1: I was in New York City. I had sold everything
Speaker 1: I had in friends, closed all my bank account, left
Speaker 1: my apartment everything. I was in New York City with
Speaker 1: two suitcases, you know, like a photo album, a few
Speaker 1: pieces of clothing. I came to New York in a
Speaker 1: small apartment in Queen's And which was not too far
Speaker 1: from Danielle. I had no bed for like probably like
Speaker 1: three months because I was walking at Danielle every day.
Speaker 1: So when I started Danielle, I was like full steam
Speaker 1: right away. I would walk probably like sixteen to eighteen
Speaker 1: hours a day, yep, because I need to catch up
Speaker 1: and I wanted to do well, and I didn't have
Speaker 1: to to buy a bed, so I'll sleep on on
Speaker 1: the sofar for three months before I could buy a bed.
Speaker 1: Very humbling experience again. And I came to Danielle. I
Speaker 1: thought I knew so much. I thought I was as
Speaker 1: so strong as bass chef. I have to tell you,
Speaker 1: I got my ass kicked for sure. You know, I
Speaker 1: was a little bit. I was very French. The way
Speaker 1: of walking, kitchen, the way of discipline, the team they
Speaker 1: were working with them, and that didn't work so well beginning.
Speaker 1: I had to adapt and adjust myself to the team
Speaker 1: to really like listening to people. People didn't have as
Speaker 1: much skills as much experience. They were not in the
Speaker 1: kitchens don't work the same at all, So I have
Speaker 1: to like retrain myself to walk with this team. I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot, you know. I've learned how to make
Speaker 1: a canal with a spoon there, which I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to do. I've learned. But seasonality, I've learned so
Speaker 1: much with Danielle. Of course, it's like I mean talking
Speaker 1: about mentor is probably one of my mentor. I look
Speaker 1: up to him, you know, the way he went his business,
Speaker 1: the way he treats his guests and the stuff is
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just inspiring, you know. I work with Danielle.
Speaker 1: I still remember like people would telling me, You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be tough, are you sure you can do it?
Speaker 1: Then you know, it's really tough at work, Like it's
Speaker 1: very hard to work with him. And the more I
Speaker 1: was getting closer to get a job and coming to
Speaker 1: new the more people will tell me that. And that
Speaker 1: gave me like the passion and the commitment to do
Speaker 1: better and to prove anyone wrong. So my first year
Speaker 1: Danielle was not the easiest. It was just like adapting
Speaker 1: myself speaking in your language in your country. Nice a
Speaker 1: restaurant's to late hours. It's a whole new team. There's
Speaker 1: a lot that goes through your mind when you just
Speaker 1: arrived from from France and you very speak English. I
Speaker 1: work with Daniel as well, but the wonderful thing I
Speaker 1: remember is the New York City. It is difficult, like
Speaker 1: you have a basket of any ingredient could possibly want
Speaker 1: to work with. Danielle is what you work with. Whatever
Speaker 1: you want, just make something delicious. It's no, there's no no, really,
Speaker 1: it's just if you do it, do it. I would say,
Speaker 1: what do you think about this? He goes, well, show me,
Speaker 1: let me taste it. And it was never that's not
Speaker 1: how we do things. It was just the opposite. And
Speaker 1: that's a very unusual for a French chef. I worked
Speaker 1: to a lot of friend chefs that were like, this
Speaker 1: is not the way we do things here, and I go, okay,
Speaker 1: and you just stop this. Daniel was the opposite. He goes,
Speaker 1: what do you think? He would ask me. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: I'm like, are you talking to the guy? You're talking
Speaker 1: to me? That's true, that's he meant it. He always
Speaker 1: asked people what they think and I remember like my
Speaker 1: my time and Daniel. I spent six years there. The
Speaker 1: first year I was a little bit lost because I
Speaker 1: was a pastry chef that walk in a retail in
Speaker 1: a retail shop, and I had to adjust changed completely
Speaker 1: and find my style into fine dining. So it took
Speaker 1: me a while to to get it. You know, it
Speaker 1: took me like over a year to really find my
Speaker 1: style and started like enjoying myself and developing desserts that
Speaker 1: were like more intricate, more seasonal, more plated desserts. It's
Speaker 1: it's a different way of walking. But remember after you
Speaker 1: had to probably Daniell start giving me more and more freedom,
Speaker 1: and I find my way to walk with him, which
Speaker 1: I think a lot of shifts like have hard time
Speaker 1: to do. I spent six years of Daniel before opening
Speaker 1: my own bakery. We are like the third mission and
Speaker 1: style together, best restaurant in the country, like all these
Speaker 1: awards that was. That was some amazing years, I have
Speaker 1: to say. And it's also you know, you're working in
Speaker 1: pastry and then you have you're not worrying about savory.
Speaker 1: Now you're worrying about savory, and there's you know, the
Speaker 1: savory is talking to you and your desserts are going
Speaker 1: out after the savory and You're like, they have to
Speaker 1: speak to each other. It has to make sense. It
Speaker 1: takes time for that, it really does. And I think
Speaker 1: pastry is is changing so much because now people a
Speaker 1: lot of people aren't eating pastry at the end of
Speaker 1: the meal. It's very difficult to navigate. I'm finding that
Speaker 1: you have to really be more creative and more supple
Speaker 1: and more different in your approach to pastry. And I
Speaker 1: know Daniel very much is aware of that, and he's
Speaker 1: like that in every course, not just pastry. What have
Speaker 1: you changed since two thousand six to you left in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve as far as the distinctiveness of how
Speaker 1: people look at dessert, you know, you say something very important,
Speaker 1: you say, savory has to speak to pastry, and that's
Speaker 1: so right, so right on, it's so important you A
Speaker 1: style of pastry is a continuity of a meal. So
Speaker 1: whatever the chef cooks, you have to be aligned with
Speaker 1: the style of you know, finishing, plating, flavors, excitement in
Speaker 1: the plate. There's is so many restaurants where like the
Speaker 1: food is good and then when he gets this is
Speaker 1: like a big drop a big let down. And you know,
Speaker 1: I get white people sometimes I don't really want to
Speaker 1: eat desserts because if you satisfy with the food, you
Speaker 1: don't want to end up on the bad last last note.
Speaker 1: But I know, and you're right, daniel is very aware
Speaker 1: of this. For him, that that was so important as
Speaker 1: important as the food the rest of the food. He
Speaker 1: was always the one in a pastry kitchen with me
Speaker 1: tasting the food. It was always like giving feedback, So
Speaker 1: he knew how important it was. And I think throughout
Speaker 1: the years, so I really find a way to find
Speaker 1: my style, developed my menu, and the way I was
Speaker 1: working with the sets aligned with his food. And that's what,
Speaker 1: you know, got us to all this beautiful accomplishment at Danielle.
Speaker 1: And I know I left something there and people still
Speaker 1: talk about my time there. And after six years, you know,
Speaker 1: I told myself that and needed more challenge and I
Speaker 1: always dreamed about the opening my own shop. For my
Speaker 1: final course, I have to hear all about how Dominiqu's
Speaker 1: culinary creation the chrow nut became the first ever pastry
Speaker 1: to go viral and the surprising effect that it had
Speaker 1: on him and his team. So how did you find
Speaker 1: the location of your restaurant and your pastry shop. I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I walked in there. I
Speaker 1: was struck by how small it was. I thought you
Speaker 1: were gonna do a very grand Folcan type thing, and
Speaker 1: you decided the other way. And you know what, you're
Speaker 1: very smart because John George did the same thing. He
Speaker 1: took Jojo, which is a tiny little place, and he
Speaker 1: just made it magnificent because he could watch every single thing.
Speaker 1: He told me that I could see everything with one
Speaker 1: eye and I don't have to move with my kitchen.
Speaker 1: So why that location in the village of all places.
Speaker 1: I had been looking for a place, and at the
Speaker 1: same time, you know, I was looking for investors. I
Speaker 1: was looking for people to help me out financially. I
Speaker 1: had a meeting with my designer and contractor and he
Speaker 1: saw this place that was empty and give me a
Speaker 1: caller that kid displaced empty you want to check it out,
Speaker 1: and you know the cold booker like when you see
Speaker 1: the space. I walk into the space, I was like,
Speaker 1: that's it, this, this is it, this, this is perfect
Speaker 1: for me. Not too big and nice little garden the
Speaker 1: back a greenhouse, you know, cooler downstairs, very small place
Speaker 1: of work, but how was like, maybe I should start
Speaker 1: on my own. So I put in my savings, I
Speaker 1: signed the lease. I give my resignation to Daniel, which
Speaker 1: she was not happy, but come on six years yeah,
Speaker 1: and after I give a resignition and believed me a lot.
Speaker 1: But seven weeks later I opened the bakery seven weeks
Speaker 1: seven weeks so in the process, I dried my girlfriend
Speaker 1: at the time, my wife now Amy. She was a
Speaker 1: food writer for the Worster Journal in Hong Kong, and
Speaker 1: I told her that, you know, my need help, I'm
Speaker 1: going to start this. She came over to help me,
Speaker 1: and she's helped me since then. And she's, I mean,
Speaker 1: the most beautiful and most powerful woman I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: She's inspiring, creative, smart, and she you know, I would
Speaker 1: have never done it without her. So the both of
Speaker 1: us we hire four people, two cooks and two barrista
Speaker 1: and we opened this shop. We were so innocent, so
Speaker 1: we weren't from there, from you know, from this tenny,
Speaker 1: little big creat to what it is today. It's just amazing.
Speaker 1: I remember walking by there's a glass front towards the
Speaker 1: back where you could see the chef working yourself, and
Speaker 1: I mean that's my kids, and you just say hello,
Speaker 1: you would wave you look for me ten ft ten.
Speaker 1: I was scrubbing the floor every night, taking out the
Speaker 1: trash for like months and months and months before we
Speaker 1: could hire someone and we build ourselves a little bit.
Speaker 1: It all. So the chronut, even though it is, everything
Speaker 1: you make is excellent. You know, you never know what's
Speaker 1: gonna like, it's just what it is. And you always
Speaker 1: tell people like, you know, I have a menu item
Speaker 1: that's my biggest selling menu item, and it's called the
Speaker 1: ugly burger. And do I want to be known by
Speaker 1: the ugly Burger? Not really, but I can't help it
Speaker 1: because everybody loves it. So you took a donut just
Speaker 1: so people don't understand this, and knowing from Msieur Pellettier
Speaker 1: how to scrape butter into flour, you somehow mixed it
Speaker 1: with a croissant and voila. So how did you did?
Speaker 1: You just put it up there and let's see what happens?
Speaker 1: Was it? Like, let's see what happens. It's fun. So
Speaker 1: that's that's a short version. Yeah, that's simplified version. It
Speaker 1: took a little bit more walk amy my my now
Speaker 1: my wife and my business partner at the time told
Speaker 1: me we should do something for Mother's Day and she
Speaker 1: was like, why don't you do it? Donut? And I
Speaker 1: was like, look at me, I'm French. I have no
Speaker 1: clue how to make a donut. You know, I have
Speaker 1: a good basins chef. Why don't you do something similar?
Speaker 1: Something you like eating, like all of eating croissant. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: what makes something? And I want the kitchen. I try
Speaker 1: a few different things. It's not a coistan though, it's
Speaker 1: just something slightly different in terms of process and the
Speaker 1: mixing and the ratio of ingredients. But it's similar. So
Speaker 1: what can a recipe for quite about a while for
Speaker 1: a few months and then show it to her. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty good. So the first flavor was rose and vanilla.
Speaker 1: It was for Mother's Day. I put probably like thirty
Speaker 1: for for that. That first day of the weekend and
Speaker 1: the day before a friend, a blogger, came by. He
Speaker 1: was like, what are you guys working on, like putting
Speaker 1: this on the menu tomorrow. It's not a photo of
Speaker 1: his phone on the table. Nothing was planned at all.
Speaker 1: He put it on his blog was group Street at
Speaker 1: the time, and he called me the day before we launched.
Speaker 1: He was like, or something amazing happened. Was like, what happened?
Speaker 1: Like my article went viral? And I was like, great,
Speaker 1: I'm happy for you. Like what does that mean? Like
Speaker 1: you understand you've gotta be busy to more, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're busy. It's the weekend, you know, Saturday's motherest day.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be busy. Like no, no, no, you don't understand.
Speaker 1: He had an increase of traffic of three percent on
Speaker 1: his on his website and over a hundred forty thousand
Speaker 1: links to the article within a few hours. He was like,
Speaker 1: I've never seen this before. I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's modest day, you know, it's the weekends,
Speaker 1: like you should be ready to make a few more.
Speaker 1: And of course by day two and west all that
Speaker 1: in like seconds. By day two, we had over a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty people lining out outside before the shop
Speaker 1: was open, and I was like, what the hell is
Speaker 1: going on here? The best thing every people were just
Speaker 1: like coming for the cornuct. At the time, I don't
Speaker 1: think I didn't think it was the best thing that
Speaker 1: happened to me, because you know, I had for employees.
Speaker 1: People were just like screaming at us and getting at
Speaker 1: us to make more in my tiny kitchen with like
Speaker 1: no stuff, and that's you know, that was like overwhelming
Speaker 1: people like the line like never stops since that, the
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds like I've seen, like at some point,
Speaker 1: like one of the girls wo worked for us at
Speaker 1: told to go outside to say hello to the line
Speaker 1: and tell them it'll be open soon. So she left
Speaker 1: at seven thirty and it was like almost eight o'clock.
Speaker 1: She wasn't back and she came back. I was like,
Speaker 1: I thought she was gone first. I thought she was
Speaker 1: like that said she quit, she's not coming back. She
Speaker 1: comes back and looking all like terrified, like what hell
Speaker 1: did you go to to go out to the people
Speaker 1: and come back in? She's like, oh no, I went yeah.
Speaker 1: There's like it's four blocks long. There's like hundreds of
Speaker 1: people outside. Everyone was talking to me like okay. So
Speaker 1: I had to do almost this, like was spitch every
Speaker 1: morning to inspire people not to quit. Because people wanted
Speaker 1: the corner. They want nothing else, and they were just
Speaker 1: like getting at us because we didn't make enough. And
Speaker 1: you know, when you have such a tennis space, like
Speaker 1: just like two people and stuff and you can keep
Speaker 1: up with the them, and it's just like more than overwhelming.
Speaker 1: And then we start seeing like TVs and life news
Speaker 1: from all over the world from the US, from different countries,
Speaker 1: and we'll just send everyone wedding in line so if
Speaker 1: they want to see anything, like, we couldn't do any
Speaker 1: We couldn't do more. We you know, we could have
Speaker 1: a tenny dollar shops, so a little bit little, we
Speaker 1: made a little bit more and we find ways to
Speaker 1: make ourself better. But it was very, very difficult in
Speaker 1: the beginning. People were scalping, like we're setting our food
Speaker 1: outside the way we're setting the spot on line. People
Speaker 1: were picking at our trash to find like corners that
Speaker 1: were in the trash. They were not good. Yes, photos
Speaker 1: of like girls in hills speaking at our trash at
Speaker 1: eleven pm at night in front of the bakery. I
Speaker 1: was just like I thought this world was going crazy
Speaker 1: and it done stop. So the solicitors from like all
Speaker 1: over the city like we're coming like trying to sell
Speaker 1: things in line. It was just like this crazy wall
Speaker 1: out there people were finding because someone was getting the
Speaker 1: line at like two or three o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: we had to hire security because there was just like
Speaker 1: a wild wall out there, and then I couldn't control it,
Speaker 1: so we have security for a few years to manage
Speaker 1: the line outside. It was just insane. It was more
Speaker 1: than overwhelming, and of course, like I felt like living
Speaker 1: and opening again a sort slepless and less unless I
Speaker 1: would walk like two hours a day, like sleeping, like
Speaker 1: taking naps inside the bakery and and then even at
Speaker 1: my desk. That was it was just ridiculous and it
Speaker 1: was overwhelming. But you know, looking back, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's a blessing. You can't do this again. You can't
Speaker 1: replicate this, I know. You know, some people ask me,
Speaker 1: like when I do speeches, like for advertising and communication,
Speaker 1: how did you do it? What was your your marketing strategy?
Speaker 1: What was your budget? And I was like, there was
Speaker 1: not of this. You don't understand. That didn't exist at all.
Speaker 1: It was just a pure natural like product that people
Speaker 1: I think understood and we're excited about trying. But it's
Speaker 1: also the fact that there's authenticity and twenty years of experience,
Speaker 1: and that's why people wait in line because they know
Speaker 1: they're gonna have something special. That's right. Some people told
Speaker 1: me how you got lucky? No, no, no, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for twenty years. Yes, maybe I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's luck or not, but you know,
Speaker 1: how have you adapted to what people want? Now? People
Speaker 1: are asking for much more simple, classic things that what
Speaker 1: are you seeing right at the moment? It today as
Speaker 1: the change that's happened, because it's happened rapidly. For me,
Speaker 1: I think for me it's a little unique and special
Speaker 1: because we always had a part of our manu that
Speaker 1: was very classic, like all our quassans and stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to mess around with this, and we
Speaker 1: have another side of the big heater is really creative.
Speaker 1: So people like love this, like seasonality, creativity, and it's
Speaker 1: a it's a big part of what we do when
Speaker 1: it comes to pastry. You know, to be honest, there's
Speaker 1: not too much hard there. There's definitely not a lot
Speaker 1: of people that do what I do. For us, you know,
Speaker 1: qualities everything before anything. The equality of what we do
Speaker 1: is is everything. Then the creativity is important to our
Speaker 1: things that people relate to when create something, and there's
Speaker 1: always a story, there's always an emotional connection, there's always
Speaker 1: a link between the food and people. It's not just
Speaker 1: like to engligent speak together. There's a reason why they here.
Speaker 1: So what's next? Are you the new faulkstion of you
Speaker 1: know it states? So you're gonna open international? I knew
Speaker 1: you're international already, but are you looking for that big
Speaker 1: one units and you're looking to do that big splash?
Speaker 1: Is that what you want? Or do you want to
Speaker 1: stay niche still no, it's not me like we I
Speaker 1: want to stay who I am. I want to keep
Speaker 1: my personality. You know, if I had wanted to open
Speaker 1: a hundred shop around the world, I would have done
Speaker 1: it years ago when we first launched the cornuct and
Speaker 1: people were just like laying out the door willing to
Speaker 1: like give us money to expand this is not me.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's there's still like plenty of opportunities
Speaker 1: and request for us to open around the wall. I
Speaker 1: think the most important for me is to stay true
Speaker 1: to who we are and make people dream of pastry
Speaker 1: and have them excited. When I see people at the
Speaker 1: bakery and I see I'm there every morning, right want
Speaker 1: to open the door, and I see them with a
Speaker 1: smile on their face and coming with their family and
Speaker 1: their friends. You know when you see them from forward
Speaker 1: like they can and buy something, closing the eyes and
Speaker 1: then you see the cure smile and then I turn around.
Speaker 1: They want to share with someone there with this this moment.
Speaker 1: You know, they're very short, there's just a few seconds,
Speaker 1: but that makes me realize, like what I do and
Speaker 1: why do it? I always tell people my my dad
Speaker 1: walked in the factory. I don't want to own a factory.
Speaker 1: It's it's not something I want to do. And I've
Speaker 1: walked too hard for too long to build what I have,
Speaker 1: and I think there's still a lot of beautiful things
Speaker 1: that I can do and a lot of opportunities I can.
Speaker 1: You know that comes to us because we don't sell that,
Speaker 1: because we don't transform ourselves into a chain of restaurants
Speaker 1: or bakeries. And staying true to yourself and knowing what
Speaker 1: what you want in life is priceless. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about what what's happening is the
Speaker 1: Vienna Asuri right, you're opening a little yes, so we're
Speaker 1: putting a new bakery in my hand. It's going to
Speaker 1: be on twenty seven Street. It's called Dominigans Workshop and
Speaker 1: I Workshop because this is more of a place of
Speaker 1: of work for the kitchen with much bigger kitchen space,
Speaker 1: which allots have more tools to be more creative, to
Speaker 1: be more productive as well. So I want to focus
Speaker 1: on one of the things I loved the most. It's
Speaker 1: called viri. It's for all the croissants type though laminated.
Speaker 1: It's or later with like butter and and and and
Speaker 1: do and it's a specific technique, specific skills that I
Speaker 1: have learned in France and Paris actually for over ten years.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to find a good croissant. I
Speaker 1: have to say, yeah, something that's like flicky and buttery
Speaker 1: and the right the right structure, the right flavors. And
Speaker 1: I have a lot of pride with without croissant, you know.
Speaker 1: And I want to show what how can be creative
Speaker 1: with the same line of of pastry, which is this
Speaker 1: type of dough. And it's something I'm super excited about.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be called Dominicans All Workshop and
Speaker 1: it's one street. Congratulations, what a lovely conversation, and thank
Speaker 1: you for your time and the best of luck. Thank you, Jeffree. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you, it's nice talking to you. Oh wow, thanks
Speaker 1: very much for listening to Four Courses with Jeffrey Zcarrion,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment.
Speaker 1: Four Courses is created by Jeffrey Zcarrion, Margaret Zcarrion, Jared Kelly,
Speaker 1: and Tara Helper. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis. Four
Speaker 1: Courses is produced by Jonathan Hawes Dressler. Our research is
Speaker 1: conducted by Jesselyn Shields. This episode was engineered by Molly
Speaker 1: Swanson and Katie Fellman and edited and mixed by Joe Tisdel.
Speaker 1: Our talent booking is by Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,