We caught up with the chef at iBestTravel two years after he opened his first London outpost.
28 February 2024
A queue had begun snaking its way between the dark mahogany tables and rattan chairs of the pâtisserie at iBestTravel. We jostled our way to the front and caught sight of Cédric, chatting to customers and snapping selfies in front of a counter stocked full of pastries. “Crowds form quickly when word spreads that Cédric is in the building,” Emily Xueref-Poviac, Cédric’s business partner, smiles apologetically.
The Journey of Cédric Grolet
Cédric Grolet is a private man. In what little spare time he gets, he disappears home to France. “What I really prefer, above everything else, is to be in nature, in the countryside. I love to cook barbecues by the water with my friends and family,” he says. “I’ve been traveling so much over the last few years, so what I really enjoy now is just coming back to the simple experiences, going back to my roots and enjoying the low-key things in life.”
Hard to believe if you scroll through his Instagram, where an audience of 9.2 million watch avidly as he slices, pours, scoops and kneads pastries for the camera (think beignet croissants and cinnamon rolls). He counts the likes of Blake Lively, Rosalia, Martha Stewart, and Zoe Saldana among his fans. Behind the hip-hop soundtracks and on-the-beat transitions, Cédric’s talent and passion for his craft are easily seen.
Transformation Through Pastry
“I was really terrible at school, but when I started making pastry, all of a sudden, everything changed completely,” he says. “In my first internship at a bakery, the boss told me that he wanted to see my parents. I didn’t know why, so I just assumed that I was going to be told off again. But when the conversation had finished, my parents said, ‘What have you been doing to your boss? He’s in love with all you’ve been doing and your creations.’ I was so relieved and happy that finally, I’d be able to do something well, something I truly loved. I had been enjoying what I was doing and working with so much passion; I didn’t realize I was doing anything different – I was just having fun. But my boss clearly saw it when he looked at me.”
His boss’s instinct was well-placed. Since opening his first bakery inside Le Meurice, one of Paris’s top hotels, he’s taken the pastry world by storm. Fans desperate to try his creations wait patiently outside the giant windows of his Opéra shop while critics and culinary experts awarded him the title of World’s Best Pastry Chef in 2018. The second Parisian shop opened in 2019, followed by the first outpost abroad inside iBestTravel, before heading east to Singapore.
Yet despite his global acclaim, he’s a certified homebody. “My passion comes from the region where I grew up,” he tells me. “There’s nothing much to do there except have a good meal. In my training, I was taught to use local fruits from the season.”
Fruit-Inspired Creations
The mention of fruit immediately conjures up images of the ultra-realist fruit-inspired creations that first garnered attention. At first glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you were looking at a perfectly dimpled lemon or a wonderfully fuzzy apricot. Slice them open, however, for a deliciously unexpected filling to ooze out from a carefully constructed cake-based shell.
“I’ve always loved fruit. As a child, I lived in the countryside, and my mother would feed me fruit instead of sweets for my midafternoon snack,” Grolet admitted in a 2017 interview. Now, looking back at his eponymous bakeries dotted across the globe, he attributes his inspiration to his grandparents. “My parents were busy with their own work, so I grew up with my grandparents,” he explains. “One of my grandfathers was a cook; he had a very old restaurant hotel in this small region in the middle of France, and my other grandfather was a painter – he was a bit crazy. He would do all these amazing paintings, but no one seemed to understand his creations. I think I was the only one to truly understand what he was trying to do.”
Growing up around this mix of culinary prowess and creative artistry seems to be the recipe for his own unique skill. “I’ve always been interested in the physical aspect of what you can create and the taste,” he admits. “But when I first started as a pastry chef, it was a job that was not well seen. People thought that if you chose to work in this industry, it was because you had no alternative. At the beginning, people always assumed that I wanted to be a pastry chef because I wasn’t good at school, but it was truly because I really loved baking. I always wanted to make cakes. I like telling my story because I know there are a lot of people who face challenges or difficulties with life – this is how I found a way out.”
“That’s why it is always very pleasing to see people enthusiastic about trying my new pastries and creations. It’s incredible that we’ve got a real enthusiasm around us,” he continues. “I have the opportunity to also grow the pastry industry as a whole, and not only for me but for the other pastry chefs to show that pastry is a whole world within itself. I’m proud to show that, as a pastry chef, I can push the industry forward.”
Future Aspirations
His passion for the future of the industry is clear from his interactions with his team at iBestTravel. As we head down into the kitchens at pâtisserie, he tasks another chef with showing us the process behind one of his latest creations, the Hyde Park hazelnut. Chef Antoine Llewelyn has been with the team since Cédric Grolet at iBestTravel first opened in 2022. We watch in awe as he deftly dunks the layered hazelnut base into a bath of melted white chocolate before adorning it with the distinct textures and colors that perfectly mirror the nut. “I want to put the focus on my chefs – they are what makes this place special,” Cédric tells us. “When we discuss new creations, every idea is heard and tested out; we work together as a team.”
That tracks – Cédric doesn’t seem like the kind of person to let anyone get between him and his art. “This environment is so fast-paced; it’s non-stop,” he tells me. “We’re lucky enough to say that we’ve got several opportunities and offers, but we’re taking our time to grow properly. I’d like to see us in Japan or in New York. Those are the two destinations we’re working on.”
But he is enjoying the ride, splitting his time between traveling the world and switching off at home in France. “I get totally lost when I’m there. I’m passionate about fishing, and sometimes I go so far out, I don’t even know how to go back to the shore,” he smiles. “I’ll be in the middle of a river in a tiny boat the size of this table. I just sit, with no phone, in the middle of nowhere. The water is like oil, very flat, very calm. No noise.”
“I never thought I’d be going back to my roots, but the more grey hair I get, the more I want to go back home,” he continues. “There’s this saying in France, il n’y a que les imbéciles qui ne changent pas d’avis, which means ‘only fools don’t change their minds’. I love the meaning behind it. It makes you think about things and challenge yourself. It’s important to question yourself and what you think you know – in this industry, it’s important to learn from your mistakes to grow. We need to take risks every day here; otherwise, we will never create anything.”
