Perched on a pink bar stool, I grip the edge of the marble countertop tightly to stop myself from falling face first into the array of stunning pastries in front of me.
‘They look too pretty to eat,’ I tell Sofia Neves, the assistant manager of Cédric Grolet at The Berkeley. Unsurprisingly, it’s not the first time she’s heard this.
I’m pretty sure my eyes must be as big and as round as saucers as I take in the cakes and viennoiserie (Viennese-style pastries) the team has laid out for me.
Having seen Cédric’s creations on social media, I didn’t expect to be so blown away, but they truly are works of art — they don’t call him the ‘God of pastry’ for nothing!
‘I didn’t know I was called a God,’ the French pastry chef admits to Metro.co.uk.
He’s incredibly humble about his success, revealing he still gets ‘surprised’ when his food videos go viral online, despite having 11 million followers on Instagram.
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‘I’m just happy that my work is appreciated and that people understand my creations. With my teams around the world, we always try to do better and work harder to surprise and delight.’
The 38-year-old is quite possibly the most famous pastry chef in the world right now, with pâtisseries around the globe, including Cédric Grolet Opera and La Pâtisserie du Meurice par Cédric Grolet in Paris, as well as locations in Saint-Tropez, Singapore, and London.
Queues form daily outside each, with people waiting hours to get their hands on his sweet treats. Hundreds will also gather to peer through the windows of his pâtisseries, hoping to catch a glimpse of the master at work, which he admits can be a rather bizarre experience.
‘Baking in front of a crowd always makes me a little nervous, but I know that the people are kind-hearted and passionate about pastry,’ he explains.
‘It’s a pleasure for me to be able to share some time with them too, because pastry is also about sharing.’
And fans got a real treat recently when actress Blake Lively stopped by Cédric Grolet Opera to create a cake with him. The pair filmed a video in the chef’s usual stop motion style, using giant bowls, and fresh ingredients.
The end result was an extra large charlotte aux fruits paired with drinks from Blake’s Betty Booze range. The chef says he very impressed with the former Gossip Girl star’s skills.
‘Blake is a friend and a remarkably kind person,’ he says. ‘The shoot went really well, she played the game totally and is passionate about baking!
‘She surprised me so much with her talent!’
Cédric’s viral videos might make the baking process look rather speedy, but in reality it’s anything but.
The Trompe L’Oeil, which are the pâtisserie’s signature hyper-realistic cakes designed to look like fruit or nuts, take the longest to make. There’s a lot of waiting involved as each layer has to set to exactly the right consistency before a chef can move on to the next step.
At The Berkeley, Cédric’s sous chef Maxime Badinier, reveals that the team there spend hours every day crafting each perfect cake and pastry you see.
But some take even longer to come to fruition.
Cédric previously spent an entire decade working on the Raspberry Trompe L’Oeil that was released at Le Meurice in 2022.
‘It took a long time to get it right due to the technical nature of pastry-making,’ he said.
Sadly the Raspberry isn’t available in London at the moment, instead the current star of the show is the £23 Peach Trompe L’Oeil, which looks exactly like the juicy, fuzzy fruit it’s inspired by.
Maxine explains that the middle of the cake — which is filled with peach verbena gel, fresh peach, and lemon verbena ganache — has to be completely frozen in order to then shape it into the perfect peach.
Once it’s been artfully crafted into the right form, it gets dipped in a very thin layer of white chocolate before being airbrushed in various colours to make it look more realistic.
‘The core is soft, but the outside is hard,’ Maxime says. ‘It’s very fragile. The whole process takes about two to three days from start to finish.’
Cédric’s success hasn’t come without a dash of controversy though. On Tripadvisor, a number of reviewers have slammed the price of the illusion cakes, branding them ‘overpriced’. The cakes can cost as much as £25 each.
I too initially balked at the price tag — it’s more than I’d usually pay for a high end lipstick, let alone a cake — but after getting a sneak peek behind the scenes in the kitchen and discovering the sheer volume of work that goes into making just one of them, it’s much easier to swallow the cost.
The delightful taste helps as well. It’s delicious.
Despite being crammed full of filling, the Peach is incredibly light, with a swift tartness from the citrus to balance out the sweetness of the rest of it.
There’s nothing ‘naughty’ about this dessert, no gooey caramel or heavy cream, it’s a different kind of indulgence altogether from what I’m used to. It’s luxurious and so pretty to look at — this is without a doubt the pastry equivalent of a Michelin star meal.
The experience overall is a little bewildering — logically I knew I was consuming some kind of pudding, but it had such a fresh and fruity taste that it almost felt healthy.
It’s not something I’d crave as a pick me up for a sugar rush, or a sweet I’d opt for as a midnight snack, but for a special occasion, this is exactly the sort of thing I’d want to treat myself to.
Essentially, if you’re a bit of a basic b*tch like me, eat one of these and you’ll instantly feel fancy AF.
But it’s not just the tarts and cakes that Cédric and his team excel at, they’ve also nailed the basics.
The croissants are legendary, but at £8 a pop they can’t afford to be anything less than spectacular. Thankfully, they are as good as you’d hope, with perfectly defined, flaky layers on the outside giving way to a rich, buttery inside.
They’re also HUGE. I know we all say size doesn’t matter, but lets be real, it does and this is one instance where bigger certainly is better.
The Pain Suisse au Chocolat (£9) is also divine, with a silky vanilla crème pâtissière, rich chocolate chunks, and the most incredible lamination on top. If you still aren’t convinced that Cédric is a pastry god, you will be after your first bite of this. It’s ‘I’ll have what she’s having’ levels of good.
Each item on the menu seems to be more creative and eye-catching than the last, and you might find yourself wondering how on earth Cédric keeps topping his best bakes.
His passion for pastry innovation plays a big part, but he’s also heavily motivated by his own success story.
The chef has shared how he ‘wasn’t good in school’ and when he first started baking people looked down on his job, assuming he was only working in the industry for lack of options.
‘But it was truly because I loved baking,’ he told Conde Nast Traveller.
‘Now I have the opportunity to grow the pastry industry as a whole, to show that pastry is a whole world within itself. I’m proud to show that I can push the industry forward.’
He does this through his innovative bakes which takes the legacy of traditional French pastry and brings it ‘up to date’, taking inspiration from the ‘infinite’ world around him.
‘I’m inspired by nature and its many seasons, the gastronomic cultures I discover and find during my travels around the world, interesting architecture and the latest fashion,’ he tells Metro.
If you’re wondering which of his many bakes is his favourite, it’s always the next one.
‘There is not one thing I prefer baking or cooking. It’s rather about creation. Thinking about new pastries that will be available in one of my shops tomorrow keeps me going.’
True to his word, he’s already hard at work on to the next big thing, despite having only just launched a new summer menu at The Berkeley.
‘There will always be new goals, and it’s important to set new ones. For the moment, there is a very important one that I hope to unveil shortly,’ he teases.
‘All I can say is that it’s a new concept that combines all my universes.’
Sounds like it’s going to be pretty epic…
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