It’s 10am at the Cedric Grolet patisserie at The Berkeley. Everything is as it should be: chefs in paper hats are whirling past in a hurry; glamazons are perched on pastel pink and golden seats; and the bar is groaning with rows and rows of featherlight pastries: think ginormous pain au chocolats, bright green matcha tarts and gigantic pecan cookies. Yet something is different this bright spring morning.
For I - a editor - am standing behind the Cedric Grolet counter, poised with a piping bag. Yes, dear reader, I’ve swapped It for Vanilla Flowers. I am a Cedric Grolet pastry chef in training.
How hard can it be? Quite hard, it seems. Especially considering I have almost no experience of baking - save for a handful of vanilla sponges and one banana bread. I’ve certainly never tried any of this piping business.
But that doesn’t phase the pastry chef Antoine Llellwyn - Cedric Grolet’s right-hand-man, who has slicked back peroxide hair and tattoos. ‘This will be interesting,’ Antoine says in his French accent, leading me down to the kitchen, known as ‘The Lab’. A fitting name, considering the pastries are concocted with scientific precision.
(And instruments that resemble Bunsen Burners.) I am told The Lab is a ‘sacred space’ - journalists are seldom allowed to witness the Berkeley chefs at work. But is allowed.
And what a sight it is to behold. Antoine begins by finessing the famous peaches: a pastry that looks exactly like the texture, colour and shape of .
