Meet Florian Poirot. Yorkshire’s own pâtissier.
After having trained in some of France's best names for pâtisserie, Florian originally came to York just for a weekend interview in Nestle’s test kitchen. He didn’t speak a word of English and he got the job. The move was supposed to be nothing more than a year-long experience, a little adventure for he and his wife Celine in the scheme of larger things.
After 10 years now, Florian still lives in York with Celine and six months ago, he finally opened shop in nearby Malton. They say York is the graveyard of ambitions (we just all come up here and end up staying forever) but I beg to disagree.
Today, Florian is crowned UK Pastry Champion and in 2016 won the title for Yorkshire Life Chef of the Year. Recently, he returned to his native France as part of the UK Pastry Team (which ranked 8th of 22) competing at the ‘Coupe du monde de la pâtisserie’.
Six months ago now, Florian opened shop in Malton where you will find dainty little French Pâtisseries, homemade chocolates and, of course, his gorgeous macarons.
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I once decided on an evening after dinner (and probably a little wine) it would be a great idea to make macarons. I flipped through my copy of Christophe Felder’s "Pâtisserie" for a recipe... I mean, how difficult could it be?
By 1am that night, I was still scrubbing the kitchen clean and pricking out of my hair sticky strands of meringue and salted caramel. On the counter I had what must have been 2 dozens of ugly, heavy-textured and utterly failed macarons. It took me days to get through them all and from then on, the poetry of the little pillowy-sweet round thing somewhat… diminished in my eyes.
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But last week during the York Chocolate Festival, I met Florian and tried his macarons and remembered why I had once been so obsessed with them.
Florian’s macarons are light as they should be and the flavours are vibrant and right on point.
French pâtisseries are delicate and dainty little things (much like or unlike the people -- I let you have your pick ;-) ) and it is a very difficult thing (or perhaps a very French skill) to strike this balance as Florian does between indulgence, balance and precision.
Back in my Canadian days, my favourite Macaron shop in Montreal was called Point G...
The mojito macaron might have been my favourite one though I always have and always will have a soft spot for raspberries. Especially when mixed with chocolate. Oh and Salted Caramel. Maybe also Passionfruit and chocolate….
Just try them all is really my motto.
And a little bird tells me that sometimes, somewhere, in a near or distant future, you might just get to learn for yourself how to make Florian’s famous macarons! Keep an eye out and follow us on Social Media (because after that failed experiment, I will certainly be keeping an eye out for those!) to get news on dates!
For now, I’ll just get back to my macarons. Happy weekend!