From Michelin Stars to Escoffier: Chef Instructor Florian Tetart on Building Culinary Excellence

TRANSCRIPT

Kirk Bachmann: Hi everyone, my name is Kirk Bachmann, and welcome back to The Ultimate Dish. Today, we have a special guest: our very own Escoffier Chef Instructor, Florian Tetart.

Originally from Lille, France, Chef Florian has spent many years perfecting his craft in some of the world’s finest kitchens. His journey has taken him from top-rated restaurants across Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Tokyo to local bakeries in the United States.

One of his standout roles was serving as the Chef de Cuisine-Pastry at Ecriture in Hong Kong, a Michelin-starred restaurant where he pushed the boundaries of pastry and baking.

This experience, along with many others, has shaped Chef Florian’s commitment to delivering the highest quality in everything he creates. In 2019, his dedication earned him the title of ‘Pastry Chef of the Year’ from GQ Taiwan.

Now, Chef Florian is based in Boulder, Colorado, where he shares his wealth of knowledge as an Escoffier Chef Instructor in Baking & Pastry Arts. He’s passionate about helping others learn, welcoming questions, and embracing mistakes as part of the journey.

So join us today as we chat today about key qualities that are essential for success in today’s pastry industry, what it’s like to teach at Escoffier, and so much more.

And there he is! Good morning, Chef. How are you?

Florian Tetart: Hi, good morning. Thank you for having me.

Kirk Bachmann: This is so serendipitous for me because you’re on the other side of the campus. I’m next to your pastry class – where you should be teaching right now – but thank you, thank you, thank you so much. We see each other so often in the hallways and in the classrooms, but it’s really an honor to have you on the show, and just relax for an hour and spend some time talking about you. Typically you’re in the classroom. I’m grateful that we found someone to cover for you. Your students are walking by my office.

Tell us really quickly how it’s going so far? How’s this new group of students? We’ll start off with the education side, and then we’ll dive into you.

Florian Tetart: Well, it’s going great. I have a great group of students right now. We moved on to our second block about two weeks ago. Now we are in week two. We’re doing a lot of cake on this block, so they are very excited to do American cake style. We’re going to make carrot cake. We’re going to do wedding cakes, a lot of projects like this on the side. They are very excited.

Growing Up in a French Bakery

Kirk Bachmann: Oh, that’s wonderful! That’s wonderful.

The theme here is building the roots of excellence. Let’s talk about your upbringing. It’s not terribly different from mine; mine with the German pastry chef father, and yours with a French pastry chef in France. Anyone who’s listening can google you very quickly. Tell us a little bit about the town and the region – because that’s so important in France – where you grew up. I believe there’s a little bit of a blend of French and Flemish heritage where you’re from. Tell us a little bit about what growing up in that region was like, and what that region means to France?

Florian Tetart: I’m from Lille. Lille is very northern France, close to the Belgian border. What it was growing up – it’s a pretty big city of about three million people who live in Lille. I had the chance to, like you said, grow up in a bakery basically. My dad was a baker. He owned [a] bakery, and he was a pastry chef, too. I had the chance to grow up and be in this kind of environment, always be around bakeries, and always be around pastry chefs in Lille.

Like you said, we used to go to Belgium a lot because it’s very close by. Ten-minute drive and you are in Belgium. It’s very close, but at the same time they have their own culture and their own food scene, too. I had the chance to be able to just move from one to another. Also, at the border, we’d have a good marriage between these two cultures, take some of the French recipes and make them their own, and we’d take some of the Belgium recipes and make a new one with it, I’ll say. I had the chance to grow up on that and try very nice Belgium waffles and Belgium fries.

Kirk Bachmann: Tell us a little bit about it. My only way to create a comparison is growing up in the bakery of a German pastry chef that was owned and operated by my parents. Everything – and I appreciate it so much more today than perhaps I did when I was in it – but everything revolved around the business, and we understood that.

We knew that my father had a certain way that he had to work. He would work through the evening to prepare the products for the guests in the morning. The bakery was right below the flat that we lived in. He would come up later in the afternoon and spend some time with us, and then would always go to bed a little bit earlier than us. Mondays, the bakery was closed. It was always exciting because on Sunday evenings we had dinner together. He could stay up later. Monday was a day for him to relax, and for my mom to relax. I didn’t know anything different.

I always tell this story that I went to a Catholic school down the block. My lunches consisted of fresh rye bread and Black Forest torte, and some really beautiful items that I didn’t appreciate at the time, but I’m so grateful for today. Was it similar for you growing up in the business with your family, with your father?

Florian Tetart: Yeah. We have a very similar story. My dad opened his first bakery when he was eighteen years old. I was not there yet. He was one of the youngest bakers at the time to open his bakery. He made it on national TV because it was very odd for an eighteen-year-old boy to open a bakery.

Kirk Bachmann: I bet. I bet.

Florian Tetart: He opened that, so I always grew up in the bakery. Like you said, you live in a flat above the bakery. And me, it was just on the left side. We had the kitchen, in the middle we had my house, and on the right side we had the store. Basically we had a hallway just crossing the house to go from the kitchen to the store.

Kirk Bachmann: So the business was always there. Always part of it.

Florian Tetart: Always part of it. Exactly the same thing: we were closed on Monday. We’d close on Sunday afternoon and Monday. Sunday after 1 p.m. it was always exciting. “Alright! This is the weekend!”

Kirk Bachmann: It was our weekend, one hundred percent.

Florian Tetart: When we had vacations and stuff like that, it was always our Monday is our weekend. I knew that all my life as soon as I started working with him. I was around products, baked goods. Croissants, chocolate croissants, and fresh baguettes every day. Like you said, I think I appreciate it now more than ever. For me, a fresh croissant was like, “Yeah, whatever. I have this every day.”

Kirk Bachmann: Every day.

Florian Tetart: When my friends, when I was in school, came in the house, they were like, “Whoa! This is awesome. You can just pick a croissant like this?” “Yeah, whatever.”

Born to this Business

Kirk Bachmann: Or doughnuts. Everything was available. Florian, one of the things I remember the most were birthday cakes because my dad had the bakers and the business. That’s all they did was decorate cakes – wedding cakes, birthday cakes, party cakes. I can remember having spaceships on my cakes, baseball fields, things like that. Again, I tell my children about it today, and it’s hard to explain having experienced that and not being able to appreciate it in the moment.

When I think about me, I don’t know if I just always felt that my father always wanted me to be in this industry. Always, hospitality, baking, front of the house, whatever it was. I never really remembered sitting down and sketching out my life plan; I just felt like it was in my blood, in my DNA. Same for you? Did your father really push for you to be in this business?

Florian Tetart: He didn’t really push for me to be in this business, but, like you said, your dad was going to bed earlier, and it was working. That’s the good thing. It was working from home.

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, essentially.

Florian Tetart: The only way when I was a kid to spend time with him was to go in the kitchen, so I spent a lot of time in a kitchen. He was giving me a piece of dough, and I was just playing with it, but it was the way that I was spending time with my dad, basically, because he was working twelve, thirteen hours a day. Like you said, he took a nap, and would get some of his sleep between schedules, early morning and late at night. I spent a lot of time in his kitchen early on. I never thought about doing anything else, to be honest.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh really!

Florian Tetart: He never pushed me. He told me right away, “Are you sure you want to work on the weekends? Your friends are going to be outside and having fun. You have to work. You have to go to bed early.” I was like, “I don’t see the issue here.”

I learned that a little bit later when I was twenty. “Oh, maybe. Maybe.” But I already had the experience and I enjoy it so much. Simply. I never told oh yeah- what I was going to do with my life. I was already a hundred percent sure I was going to do that. I used to say when I was a kid, when a teacher asked, “Hey, what do you want to do later?” I was like, “I’m going to be like my dad. I’m going to be a baker.”

Kirk Bachmann: Oh, I love that. Not to make you blush, it certainly shows. When you’re in the classroom, you have this ambiance when you walk in. The students hang on your every word, but the real difference is how you bring them in around you, and the technique is an extension of your hands. You have this knowledge that you genuinely love to pass on. It’s “Do this with me. We’re going to learn this together.” It perhaps echoes all the way back to when you were young that you had such a passion for it that it doesn’t feel like work for you. Easy for your boss to say, right? “You’re not really working; you’re having fun.”

The French Way

Kirk Bachmann: You really demonstrate that passion when you’re in the classroom. With that in mind, you trained at some of the most prestigious institutions in France and around the world, and you worked in these various places. It’s pretty well known that any training in Europe – whether it is French pastry training, or cuisine, or learning to make ice cream – it’s about discipline. It’s about a sense of precision. It’s about rigor. It’s a certain way of doing it. Do you believe that experience – or maybe I should ask it a different way. How did that experience, training in that sort of way, influence not only your skills, Chef, but your mindset as you progressed throughout your career? This idea of a certain way of doing it, a precise way. There’s a French way of doing it. There’s a German way of doing it. Has this stayed with you throughout your career?

Florian Tetart: Yeah. I believe, like you said, in France we have this very excellent training. I think I went to school for six years of pastry school total. The first few years, you have people who are like, “Oh, I like baking. I like baking in general.” But the more you keep going, the more passionate you have to be. Now you’re just training where only people who understand and are very, very passionate about baking and pastry in general when you move forward through your career. Inside the training in France, I had classes of three people. Now they are one of the best pastry chefs working in Dubai, working in Singapore. It makes you go forward, talking about your passion with this kind of people who share exactly the same passion. That’s what gave me the want to keep going and go a little bit higher. The higher you go, the harder it gets. When you have a group of people who have the exact same passion with you and want to move forward, it makes the hard stuff easier.

Kirk Bachmann: You mentioned six years of school. Similar. My father did the journeymanship first – it’s what they called it in Germany. That was six years where he had to be referred to go from one property to the next for whatever the amount of time was. Then the apprenticeship was a lot more formal. That included not only the technique but the education. He knew at an early age that he wanted to be a Master, what they call a MeisterBrief in Germany. It’s interesting when I think about your six years of school, his nine years of school. In America, if you go to school for nine years, you’re a doctor, and in Europe you’re a baker.

But he always knew that he wanted to come to America, but he also knew that he could work in a bakery in Germany without the Master, but in order to own a bakery – that was his ultimate goal – in Germany still today you have to be what they call a MeisterBrief in order to own a bakery. It’s probably similar in France. I know they have the MOF system as well.

Do you believe there were some specific moments – just like our students going through – there are moments where the lights go on or off. Were there any moments or lessons from your apprenticeship, your education, that really resonated with you and defined you as a pastry chef today?

Florian Tetart: I think after a couple of years working with my dad, I stopped questioning myself. “Do I still want to do that?” You go through stuff in your life. I was pretty young still, but I was less [about] pros and cons, why I’m doing pastry and why I will stop. Definitely in pastry and baking, the big, big plus for me was you can take this skill and go anywhere in the world and do what you love. That’s what I was looking for. “Oh, if I become something else, another career maybe I will not have the chance to do that.” Basically, this is when I told my dad. “I’m going to change radically. I’m not going to work for you anymore. We’ve been spending too much time together.” I love him, but this is why I moved to Paris.

Basically, it was…best pastry shop in pastry. I got the list of ten, and I applied to all of them. At the time, the third place replied to me. He was a Japanese chef. He said, “We don’t hire French people. We take Japanese pastry chefs, make them come to France, and they’re just like this. But we have a big factory, forty pastry chefs, big kitchen, in Paris. Do you want a tour?”

I was like, “I can be there tomorrow morning. I’ll drive tonight. I can be there tomorrow morning.” It was just so interesting to see my dad’s small bakery and forty pastry chefs working together on the side. “Sure.” I went there, and I got a great connection.

He asked me, “When can you start?”

I’m like, “Let me find an apartment. The next day, I will be here.” This is how it all started.

Master the Basics

Kirk Bachmann: That’s wonderful. Such great memories. I’m trying to think of our students as well. You ended up working at Michelin-starred restaurants. Let’s suffice it to say there’s a different sort of pressure, a different sort of level of technique expected. How did your education prepare you – or did it – for that type of pressure where mistakes just can’t happen?

Florian Tetart: With experience you feel a little more confident. This is what I tell our students. I always tell them, Just learn the basics. Learn how to make a beautiful vanilla tart or vanilla cake. Very nicely. You can’t say anything about it. It’s very good, very moist, well baked. The buttercream is great. After that, let’s move on to something a little more difficult. This is what I learned and moved on. I acquired all this technique and get better and better.

I had the chance to work so hard at this restaurant and be chef de cuisine over there. Like I said, I had the experience already. I had a great team. They follow me, and I think it’s not because you are chef de cuisine that you cannot make mistakes. I probably did make mistakes, but as long as you have your team behind you, that they trust you and you can show them, I think that’s what I tell our students. Show them what you are capable of, and you gain the trust of your team. That will make everything easier, and they will accept your mistakes.

Kirk Bachmann: When I hear you speaking of working alongside your father and needing to break away and go to Paris, it reminds me of [how] I had such a great appreciation for the craft of baking and pastry, but I was drawn to the cuisine side. A little more forgiving, perhaps a bit more creative. My father hated that word, creative.

Do you still today feel, as a pastry chef – what my father used to always love was the preparation. In order to be a pastry chef, you will not create a wedding cake in one day. You’ll need to make your layers, and then the next day. He thrived on that organization and that building it together, whereas I was a lot more in the moment. Is that part of your DNA as well? The mise en place? The preparation. The organization. How difficult is that, today, to teach young people about that specifically?

Florian Tetart: It’s funny; my dad used to say, “If you don’t have a brain, you have a leg.” That means if you forget something in the freezer or in the fridge, you’re going to walk back there-

Kirk Bachmann: And get it.

Florian Tetart: Yeah. This is how I learned mise en place. “Oh, I forgot my whisk!” Come back. “Oh, I forgot the bowl.” And I come back. “Oh, I forgot my cream.”

Kirk Bachmann: Then you’re exhausted. Yeah.

Florian Tetart: And you’re exhausted. Maybe I’ll take a minute before going there and bringing my stuff. So it kept going with me. Before Escoffier, I was in Chicago in this bakery. I used to count how many steps a day I was doing and how I could reduce the [steps] by setting the knife there. Can I have it right in front of me? Less movement. I would get less tired. Something like, “Does it make sense to make this cake now, or have this preparation because I’m going to need to go there at some point, bring it back.” I used to count my steps for that. For me, mise en place, we do a lot of demos for our students. I always tell them, “Look at my mise en place. I’m here. I put my circle in front of me, and the last thing I want is to be like – I don’t want to be, ‘Oh, give me a second. I’m going to grab this and come back. Give me a circle.’ You need to think about this.” This is how I show them.

“Look, I’m doing the same thing that you do. I’m going to do it in ten minutes, you’re going to do it in forty-five just because it takes me five minutes to do my mise en place to have everything ready right on my table. I don’t go anywhere.”

Kirk Bachmann: All these memories are coming to me, listening to you talk. My father’s uniform in the kitchen was a very traditional baker’s shirt with the apron over the head. The first time that I had an opportunity to work with a French chef – his name was Roland Henin, and he was a Master in the Northwest, in Portland, Oregon – and I’ll never forget, Chef, he had on this beautiful jacket, double-breasted. It was the first time I ever saw a beautiful, flowing bistro apron. I couldn’t see his shoes. We were working at this Hilton hotel in Portland, Oregon. He pulled me aside. I think I destroyed a bunch of sausages or something. He pulled me aside, and he let me know right at that point that the chef is always on stage. All eyes are on the chef.

So you have to think about, like you just said, if you’re going to move to the other side of the room to pick something up, you better think about everything that you need to pick up when you’re on that because you have to flow like you’re onstage. You have to flow through the kitchen gracefully because all eyes are on you. If you’re darting back and forth, people will lose confidence in you, faith that you are in control. Those words have always stayed with me. Somethings it’s hard. Sometimes you do have to dart across the kitchen, but this idea of all eyes. You know in the restaurant business today, it’s really popular to have open kitchens, so the guests can see what’s happening. It’s very interactive. The last thing you want to see is things thrown in the kitchen or people running around. I love that story.

Can we jump overseas? Talk about what drew you, what motivated you to move to Tokyo and work so far away from home. Many of our students want to go abroad to experience a new environment. What was that like for you? How did you adapt? You were so young: high pressure, big environment, and still you’re super, super young, away from home, the language, all of that.

Seize the Opportunity

Florian Tetart: Yeah. It was an opportunity. I worked with those Japanese chefs for a year in Paris. Basically, what happened after a year [they asked,] “What do you want to do now?” I was like, “I don’t know.”

He asked me, “Well, we have a kitchen in Tokyo in Japan. Do you want to go there?” I had to make a passport because I had never traveled before this. France and Japan [was] definitely a big trade.

[When I] arrived there my English was very poor. I introduced myself in English. I’d print sheets of Japanese. “Hi. Hello,” and introduce myself in Japanese. I still have them today. I think I’m going to frame them at some point.

Kirk Bachmann: You should! You should!
Florian Tetart: They are collected. I was very young; I was twenty years old. Thankfully this chef took me under his wing. I was the first French chef that he hired. Now I hope he’s [still taking French chefs.]

Kirk Bachmann: How old are you here? You’re eighteen.

Florian Tetart: No, I was twenty.

Kirk Bachmann: You’re twenty.

Florian Tetart: Barely twenty when I moved to Japan. I stayed a year, and I came back basically because one of my best friends – he’s a pastry chef, too. We have very similar backgrounds. He moved to Japan a year prior to me. We had a ton of fun. I was like, “It’s crazy! Look, I’m doing chocolate croissants in Tokyo. It’s amazing.” As soon as I had the opportunity, I was like, “Let’s give it a shot.”

Of course, it was very hard because Japanese food culture and work environment are very different than French. In France, it’s pretty hard, too, but Tokyo and Japan in general, it’s harder than that. I arrived with a French attitude. “Hey, I’m going to show you how I can make croissants.” Guess what? They knew how to make it, and they didn’t wait for me. They even showed me how to make better croissants.

It was awesome. After a year of that, I came back to France, and I started connecting with people in the U.S. “Do you want to move to the U.S.?” It was a positive experience for me [in] Japan, so let’s keep going. I was a little bit younger, no wife, no kids, nothing. I just take my backpack and basically I go.

Do It a Thousand Times

Kirk Bachmann: Off you go. Yeah. Before we get to the United States, another serendipitous chat. Chicago is where my father’s bakery was and where I lived. Before we get to that, I’m curious. As I think about students and the impact you have on them, I’m just curious how you approach the pressure – I’m going to use that word again – of maintaining such high standards translated into creating innovative menus. When did you know that you actually could start creating menus, and how do you encourage students to start thinking about that? Because while they’re going to school, they’re eager and they’re super motivated, but they probably don’t have the experience to be diving into creating new menus. I’m curious how you got into that, and how the pressure of what you were doing influenced those sorts of menus that you created.

Florian Tetart: Like I said, I’ve taken a very nice, basic recipe and mastered them at the beginning. This is what I try to tell the students every day: Please master your recipe before you try to change the flavor, for example. We have a couple of days at the end of the block when we are doing the plated desserts. I love plated desserts because, like you said, I was chef de cuisine at a Michelin-starred restaurant, so this is my time to show a little bit.

Every time, they’re like, “Oh, how did you change this in this? How do you make this?” Because I have the strong baking skills that I can do a plated like this. I can move forward like this. This is why I can take them. During this time, plated desserts, the day we have with students, I think eyes open for them. “Oh, now…”

Kirk Bachmann: It all comes together.

Florian Tetart: And sometimes some students don’t realize I’ve done that a thousand, thousand times. Here, on macaron day – macarons are not an easy product. They are always a little frustrated when their macarons don’t turn out well. I tell them, “I’ve probably made over a million macarons by now. I’m so close to making macarons, it’s my one millionth. It’s practice.

Kirk Bachmann: Perseverance.

Florian Tetart: You can move on.

U.S. Cities and Adapting to the Clientele

Kirk Bachmann: That’s such great advice.

Let’s talk about Chicago. We’ll put you on the map in Chicago. You were the executive pastry chef at [That] Little French Guy, right?

Florian Tetart: Yes. Right before that, I was in Hong Kong.

Kirk Bachmann: Right before Chicago. Okay.

Florian Tetart: Right before Chicago. Basically, I went to Tokyo, moved to Washington, D.C., moved back to Hong Kong, and I moved back to Chicago.

Kirk Bachmann: I didn’t realize you were in D.C. Where were you in D.C.?

Florian Tetart: I was a little bit underneath Washington, D.C. in Virginia, in Blacksburg, Virginia. I spent a year and half over there. I was executive pastry chef in a French bakery there. It was my first time anywhere.
Kirk Bachmann: I was just in D.C. this weekend. That’s why it perked my interest there.

Florian Tetart: I love Washington, D.C. Very nice.

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah. Beautiful city.

Florian Tetart: European, kind of like French.

Kirk Bachmann: It feels like Paris, right? It feels a little like Paris.

Florian Tetart: There is a story that somebody who built Paris built an avenue in Washington, D.C. The same feeling.

Kirk Bachmann: It makes sense.

Florian Tetart: Exactly.

Kirk Bachmann: Especially with the art and the architecture.

Florian Tetart: To come back to Chicago – I was in Hong Kong for two and a half years. I thought [I was] burned out. It’s a tough city, Hong Kong. Very small, crowded all the time, loud. I had my friend over there opened this bakery. As one of my goals was one day to open my own bakery, so that was on my project [list.] I was like, “I want to go back.”

So I spent a lot of time in this Michelin-starred restaurant in Hong Kong?]. High pressure, very high quality all the time. No mistakes allowed. And it was great! It was great, but after a few years, I wanted a change of environment. I wanted to change my work team. From my friend that opened the bakery in Chicago, and they needed somebody with a good background, pretty solid, to be able to pilot the team, to take care of the team of a couple of bakers and pastry chefs. We got in contact, and I was like, “All right. Let’s do it.” The week after, I moved to Chicago.

Kirk Bachmann: Did you live in the city?

Florian Tetart: No, I lived in the suburb, Highland Park.

Kirk Bachmann: Highland Park. Did you have to change your style yet again to adapt to the suburbs of Chicago to the American market?

Florian Tetart: Definitely. In Hong Kong, we were flying melon from Japan every day to sell to our guests. I did not do that in Highland Park because it was ninety-dollars a melon. I couldn’t sell a tart at twenty-four dollars. It was not possible.

Of course, you always adapt and understand your clientele. And this is what I tell our students: how many times do I go to a restaurant, and it’s nice basic food or very simple burger food, and if I want a dessert, I want a brownie or a cookie with an ice cream, and you have this elaborate dessert that doesn’t match with the restaurant? This is how you have to adapt to your clientele and what they like, and what they don’t like. What they can eat. Also price. Change.

Of course, I came back to more basic pastry, more vanilla, a lot more chocolate-based pastry. It was great.

Working with Students

Kirk Bachmann: That’s such good advice. Such good advice.

This is an odd question because you’re French. That’s where your journey started, but I’m trying to think through the lens of a student. How important is it to seize opportunities around the world? To develop their style. Is it necessary? Is it preferred? For you, obviously, you embraced it. How do you respond to students who want to know, “Should I go to Europe? Should I go to Asia?”

Florian Tetart: I always tell them, “It’s up to you. It’s what you want to do.” There’s nothing wrong with staying a small bakery next door. You’re going to learn a lot, too. But if you want to one day have a little bit more experience, be a little bit more open to the world, you can do it. I won’t say it’s the best experience you ever had in your life. There was always good and bad. Even if you go over there for six months, and it was not the best experience – you didn’t [much] like the country or [want to build] the culture, it’s always good and bad. You’ll come back with something that you might now realize right now, but you will realize this later. I’ll say, If this is what you want, I have connections. I can help you do that.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh, so well said. You’re going to make me cry.

We’re going to quote you there. We’re going to quote you. And speaking of quotes, this is a quote from you. We display this on our website because you’re an instructor here. So proud to have you. This is what you said. “As a chef, I love helping others learn by promoting curiosity, welcoming questions, and embracing mistakes as part of the learning journey. I believe in working together, communicating openly, and providing personalized support to help people develop skills and achieve their aspirations.” Absolutely beautiful. We didn’t write that for you; you wrote that. You wrote that. I’d love to talk a little bit more about you being an instructor here.

I can remember a few years ago, [I was] emailing back and forth with you. You were considering teaching. Was it always a dream, or was it a more recent aspiration – “Wow! I have a gift and I can give this back to students?” I’m not suggesting for a minute that I had a gift, but I loved the idea of teaching many years ago when I first taught. I couldn’t believe that I got paid to tell people what I knew. I couldn’t believe it! It was something I was passionate about – food, the lessons I learned from my father, my mother, and my experiences. But when it comes specifically to you, Florian, was it something that you always thought you might want to do, give back through teaching?

Florian Tetart: You know in our industry. I always tell my students, we have the chances within one career. We can work everything and everywhere. As a pastry chef, you can manage ten people. You can be by yourself in your own business. You can own your business. You can work in a big bakery, small bakery, restaurant, high-end restaurant, hotel. We have a lot of [options] and we can be teaching.

I was fortunate in my career to do almost everything. I’ve seen a little bit of everything: high-end restaurants, small and big bakeries, and on and on. Teaching was always on my radar. When I was in school, I admired my teachers because everything they taught us and every small detail during the demo. One day I had the opportunity to teach or I will take this opportunity definitely. And we met. And I had this opportunity. Definitely the first few days, “That’s incredible. I’m just talking.” Like you said, I’m bringing my passion here. It can give one person my whole bakery and baking passion, I’ve completed my mission. Definitely.

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah. Well said. Well said.

You know, I know we’ve talked a little bit about the importance of foundations and learning the basics, and maybe even mastering – it’s a big word – but mastering the recipe first before venturing out and becoming too innovative. I’m curious. For students who are just at the beginning of their journey – let’s say very young students that perhaps have very little experience – what is, in general – it’s a hard question – what’s your philosophy of how to begin to build that foundation? It’s one thing to have it, but how do you [build it]? Because disappointment is a big part of someone who perhaps has done pretty well in their parents ‘kitchen, or else their first job. They’ve done a pretty good job, but then the techniques become a lot more difficult in culinary school, and the expectations become higher, so the disappointment comes along with that. What’s your philosophy in how to wean or temper – let’s use a culinary term – temper students into that environment?

Florian Tetart: The first few days, the students are brand new in the kitchen. They walk in and they’re just like, never seen a kitchen that big before. I always tell them, “Well, I’m going to tell you something: I’m not your mommy. I’m not your daddy. Everything you do at home, it’s great and wonderful, and you are the best baker in the world.”

I tell them, “I’m a professional chef. We are professional chefs. I’m going to give you professional background and feedback. My philosophy is I’m never going to work against you. I’m not here for that. I’m going to work with you. Everything I will tell you will make you grow and get better at what you do. That’s my only goal here. You’ve done something that didn’t gpo well. It burned, something like that. It’s too dense. I’m always going to tell you what you need to do to improve this recipe. I’m never criticizing.”

Kirk Bachmann: I was just thinking back. I think it was the end of January or February. You and your wife came and met Michel Escoffier. We had a beautiful event in downtown Boulder. Is there something really special for you, growing up in France, having a spectacular career, and then landing at a culinary school with the Escoffier name? Is there something specifically rewarding about that?

Florian Tetart: Yeah. Escoffier, in France, is a legend. He did so much. I can then have my name right underneath; it makes me always proud. I have the passion. Cooking and baking in general. I always tell my students: Look this up. You will see, a long time ago. As we know, the menu and the brigade, right now, has been invented by somebody. And that somebody is Auguste Escoffier. Yes, it’s a very proud moment/lesson for me to be able to work with you.

Kirk Bachmann: Does your father still have his bakery in France?

Florian Tetart: He sold it.

Kirk Bachmann: He sold it. Good! Good.

Florian Tetart: He sold it, but he’s working in his bakery now just as manager.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s the way to do it. That’s the way to keep his passion going.

Florian Tetart: He wanted to have days off now.

The Proudest Moments

Kirk Bachmann: There you go, and he’s got the money in the bank account. That’s brilliant. That’s brilliant.

I’m just curious. This is off the record. You’ve been with us now for a couple of years at Escoffier. We’re so proud and honored to have you, and the students love you. Are there any moments that are, in your mind, the most rewarding to you about being a teacher? Like that one moment that you would actually call your father and tell him about?

Florian Tetart: Yeah. We do a culmination at the end of the block, at the end of the program. Basically, in pastry most of the time, the students make their own pastry buffet. It’s always rewarding to see their family walk in. They know me because students talk about me to their families. I know their fiance’s, their husband’s by name now. I can put names on faces now. “Oh, I know you by name. I know stories about you, but I never met you. Now is the day.” Just a smile on everybody’s face on that day. I love that day. Definitely. I get all the calm and all the thanks from family for their students. That’s very rewarding.

Kirk Bachmann: Just to talk about that culmination. I’m glad you brought that up. So culmination, it’s the pinnacle of the students’ experience while they’re in school. Then they go out in the industry to do their externship, and then of course, we encourage them to find gainful employment in this career that they’ve chosen. I’ll be the first to say that our culminations have risen to another level since you’ve been with us. What I love the most about watching you during those circulations is the presentation, the decorations, the thoughtfulness of the menu and the invitations that go out. And how proud the students are to create this display. We do the same thing for culinary, and I know that they’re responsible for procuring the menu and ordering the food, and actually executing – under your watchful eye.

Where I think you’ve really brought us to a different level is how important this is to their families. When those families walk in, and the lights are down, and the lights are flickering – the little bulbs are flickering above – it’s really about their food and their work. There are tears. There’s laughter. There’s good pastry. That’s special for me. I just want to formally thank you for that.

Chef, before we let you go, I appreciate the time. I know that you’re itching to get back to your class. The name of the podcast is The Ultimate Dish, so I can’t let you go until you tell me – in your mind – what is, we’ll say, the ultimate pastry?

Chef Florian Tetart’s Ultimate Pastry

Florian Tetart: What is the ultimate pastry? I like a lemon tart, a good lemon tart. Nice crust, a nice lemon curd with a little bit of acidity and the smoothness of meringue on top. It can be done so many ways with all the citrus fruits. I used to make yuzu tart. Very nice. I love a lemon tart.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s the first time anyone has brought that up. I love that. I love that. I was expecting something a little different, but I love that.

Florian Tetart: That’s a lemon tart.

Kirk Bachmann: Yes, lemon tart.

Chef, thank you so much for spending some time with us. Thank you for everything you do. I’ll see you in just a few moments.

Florian Tetart: Merci, Bye-bye.

Kirk Bachmann: Merci. Merci.

And thank you for listening to the Ultimate Dish podcast, brought to you by Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. Visit escoffier.edu/podcast, where you’ll find any materials mentioned during the podcast, including notes, links and other resources. And if you can, please leave us a rating on Apple or Spotify, and subscribe to support our show. This helps us to reach more aspiring individuals ready to take the next step toward their dream careers. Thanks for listening.