FRENCH PANETTONE SPECIALIST CHRISTOPHE LOUIE DESCRIBES HIMSELF AS "AN ARTISAN OF THE LIVING." HE LIKES TO SAY THAT HE COMMUNICATES WITH THE LIVING: HIS NATURAL STARTER INHERITED FROM THE GREAT ITALIAN CHEF MAURO MORANTIN.
Text By Gilbert Pytel - photos © Salomé Rateau (Featured in the May 2025 issue of Pastry1 Magazine)
Christophe Louie: "My grandparents and parents actually set up the first Chinese restaurants in the Jaram au Luxembourg In Paris. I would often help my mother in the kitchen. Aside from that, I was completely fascinated by pastry techniques. As I wasn't very deademke, I decided to lake d C.A.! in cookery al a notel school before going on to complete an apprenticeship with a Parisian pastry chef. Then, my first significant experience was at the gourmet restaurant Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon, where they
served a huge number of classic pastries. At the same time, I started taking part in a number of pulled sugar competitions. such as Arpajon and the Charles Proust, this was something I was hugelv passionate about at the time. I would often train with pastry cheis such as todie Benghanem and Nicolas Rernardé After a stint at the Hôte Meurice, I took over Angelo Musa's role at Oberweis in Luxembourg. I then returned to Paris for three years to work at Le Jules verne restaurant on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower."
You then spent 12 years at the Grande Épicerie, what did you take away from this experience?
CL: "I have some excellent memories of this time. It was a large brigade of 25 pastry chefs where we had a lot of freedom in our work. wee course maoccess lo excellen. products, which enabled us to design high quality cakes."
How did you become interested in baking?
CL: "After twenty years or so, I felt I'd pretty much done it all in pastry-making, and I was getting a little bored of doing the same things over and over again. Large-scale mechanization was also beginning to technical performance and preferred to concentrate on taste. At the same time as working at la Grande Épicerie, I learned about bakina and the use of starters and ancient grains from Thierry Delabre, aka Panadero Clandestino, who had set up a 2.0 bakery working directly from his Paris apartment. Thad a revelation during a course at Valhona on panettone. At the time, very few people in France were familiar with the artisanal version of this Italian brioche. I was lucky enough to perfect my panellone techniques with Thomas Teffri-Chambelland, founder of the Ecole Internationale de Boulangerie (International School of Bakery] and co-lounder of the organk, gluten-lee Chambelland bakery. He's an avant-garde visionary with his own unique outlook; he encouraged me lo persevere on this path. I also went to Barcelona to discover Yann Duytsche's way of working. and I realized that the Spaniards were streets ahead of us when it came to panettone."
How did you develop your panettone recipe?
CL: "I was able to procure some "100-year-old" starter during an exciting internship with Mauro Morandin. He is an internationally renowned Italian pastry chef who has won several awards for his traditional panettone. First of all, I followed his recipe to the letter, in order to be as accurate as possible. It's a cake that I like to make the old-fashioned way, using a natural starter, PDO butter, egg yolks, a little sugar and lle de France honey. Of course, there are no flavorings, additives or emulsifiers. The crumb should be stringy, airy and slightly vanilla. In the classic version, I add candied Calabrian oranges and raisins. My first panettones date back to 2016, but they were pretty catastrophic, so I've been improving little by little. Today, I offer a two-chocolate version by Nicolas Berger or one with candied mandarins, Malaga figs and orange blossom."
Before opening your store, your panettone had been available in a number of Parisian outlets since 2018?
CL: "I actually set up an online store to sell my panettones at the same time as subletting a pastry kitchen for production. The tricky thing about making panettone is that you first have to invest in a number of specific, expensive machines: a plunger arm. a fermentation chamber, an oven, special paper baking molds, etc. The early days were very difficult. But it was really in 2020, during the Christmas holidays, that people started talking about my panettone. Thanks to a video by journalist Emmanuelle Jary on her Youtube channel "C'est meilleur quand
c'est bon", orders exploded overnight. Sales far exceeded my targets, so I was able to continue my business over the following months."
Do you think panettone will be in demand in the years to come?
CL: "I'm sure of it. Just look at the large number of current training courses devoted to this product, and many Meilleurs Ouvriers de France boulangers also offer courses on the subject. I've noticed that more and more bakers are also selling them in smaller towns and villages, and not necessarily only in the big cities."
When your store opened in September 2023, you began to receive a steady stream of press articles about your panettone, from Elle magazine, La Tribune Dimanche, Le Parisien, M le Monde, Paris Match, L'Obs and more.
CL: "We're supported by a press agency that has helped us a lot in this area. We've also had a few TV reports, on BFM for instance, and I've appeared on various radio programs on France Bleu and RTL. Even if this doesn't necessarily bring us a huge number of customers, it's still a great way to showcase our brand."
What is on offer in your boutique?
CL: "Our product range is fairly narrow compared with a traditional bakery, but I prefer to do few things and do them very well, with quality raw materials and excellent working conditions. In addition to panettone.
I also wanted to create more affordable delicacies for local customers. On the bakery side, I designed a small range of breads with my partner Guillaume Etlin, aka bro.bread on Instagram, who I met at a training course. This includes a country-style bread made using an ancient variety of berry flour and natural wheat starter, as well as a range of breads with different seeds. We also wanted to reinterpret other great Italian classics such as pandoro, focaccia and colomba. We also offer a number of travel cakes: sponge cakes, orange blossom madeleines. chocolate and Madagascan vanilla marble loaf, cookies, financiers and a vanilla or hazelnut praline flan that are a big hit. As for the pastries and tartlets, they evolve over time depending on what inspires me.
There are croissants and pain au chocolats presented in the shape of a tulip, and a few savory options such as sandwiches and pizzas for lunch."