The master pâtissier
What did the French ever do for us? Apart from granting us 350 different cheeses and countless bottles of wine, they gave us Florian Poirot, a master pâtissier with a great name, a compelling French accent and fantastic pastry skills.
Florian was born in Nancy in North Eastern France. He arrived in the UK over a decade ago by way of Paris, York and now Malton and set up his pristine little shop in the food court of Talbot’s Yard. At the back of the shop is the workshop where he makes the best cakes, pastries, macarons and chocolates this side of Paris.
Florian nurtured a love of baking in his grandfather’s bakery and then at culinary school in Nancy, a town famous for its macarons. He worked in Paris, collected some prestigious awards and landed in York as development chef for Nestlé. But developing a new chocolate bar took too long for this impatient and ambitious Frenchman who was eager to do things his way.
Six years ago, after working the festivals and food markets in his spare time, he opened his shop, a French style pâtisserie specialising in chocolates and macarons.
If you can’t see Florian in the workshop, there’s a good chance you will hear him. The bang, bang, bang of the tins on the counter as he knocks the air bubbles out of the macaron mix to ensure the little pastel discs are perfectly smooth. They come out of the oven a little shiny and slightly domed, with just enough crunch to contrast with the creamy filling to produce a macaron that manages to be both crisp and soft at the same time.
He makes 14 flavours of macaron including vanilla, ginger, salted butter caramel, pistachio, passion fruit and chocolate, basil and raspberry, with new seasonal flavours through the year. And, as in any decent French pâtisserie, they are tissue-wrapped and beautifully boxed.
The rows of colourful macarons sit on the counter like a paint palette. In the next cabinet are the chocolate bon bons, little batons as glossy as polished mahogany. Just as meticulously produced as the macarons, the chocolate is the thinnest and finest, filled with ganache, praline and soft caramel.
There are ‘snacks’ too: cellophane bags filled with sweet and salty pistachios; caramelised fruit and nuts; mini meringues, as well as fancy cakes and fruity jams.
It’s a shop that is constantly growing and evolving under the perfectionist skills of Florian Poirot, it’s a real delight and a fitting showcase for his talent.
