Frédéric Bau

«There are more things to do with chocolate, Horace, of how many your philosophy can some contain». If William Shakespeare had read Fusion Chocolate, the latest book by Frédéric Bau, he would have said it like this. The book edited by Montagud confirms the extraordinary talent of one of the greatest chocolatier of recent years, not accidentally director of the Ecole du grand chocolat Valrhona, the school in Tain l'Hermitage in between whose walls they split hairs of the food produced from the seeds of tropical cacao trees.

Bau never barks odd or procuress theories like many other pastry colleagues do but he is given to write the principles of an epistemology of chocolate that never tells the sweet from the salty because chocolate can impress his specific texture print on every singular course, from appetizers to desserts, from fish to meat dishes. The fact that he’s also talented when holding a pen, has already been clear from the enthusiastic reviews on Au Coeur des Saveurs, the bible of english or Japanese wishful pastry chefs: in 1997 it was awarded for best overall book of gastronomy at Périgueux’s Salon international du livre gourmand . Born in Woippy, Lorraine region, the city of strawberries, his professional path crossed Pierre Hermé at Fauchon’s in Paris: Bau owes him a lot.

That happened soon after he ended the first chapter of his restaurant career, by Grignotière in Plappeville, Moselle region. The loop closed recently, with the opening of the restaurant Umiain Tain l'Hermitage, with the decisive help of his Japanese wife Rika. In sum, Bau proves the west and east, like sweet and sour, are categories intended to melt on the way to extinction, devoured by the omnivore movement of the global magma.