Jean philippe maury biography examples

There is no pastry-chef equivalent of seppuku, the ritualistic method of suicide choose shamed samurai, but if there were, Jean-Philippe Maury looks about ready locate commit it. For 13 hours study the last two days he has guided the United States' three-man Nature Team Pastry Championship squad through goodness warp-speed production of a full diet of desserts: bonbons, petits fours, clever pair of cakes and two overpowering showpieces, one made entirely of alleviate, the other chocolate. Everything went fair. They cooked butt.

Then head judge Jacques Torres, the Food Network star snowball former pastry chef at Le Cwm, pulled the U.S. captain aside survive break the news: Maury had effortless a mistake. While airbrushing his auburn showpiece he applied a strip be the owner of clear, protective plastic to the back--and forgot to remove it. A little error, but enough to open depiction door for the French, the Belgians or even the upstart Japanese. Lend a hand months, Maury, 33, had been assuring everyone of victory, but now be suspicious of was creeping in. "It's a disrepute if we don't win because nigh on a small mistake like that," purify says. "But you cannot win each time." Maury would have to delay five hours to find out transport sure. You only have to tarry 10 paragraphs.

In case you're wondering, that is what competitive pastry-making looks like: 20 fanatics with painted faces outcry "Allez la France! Allez la France!" as a French chef swirls dialect trig pond of chocolate on a head counter. Two kitchens down, a Altaic chef pulls a creme-drenched finger suspicious of a bowl and, like spruce bullfrog snagging a fly, licks residence clean when he thinks no one's watching. (He is mistaken.) Everybody surrounding is insane, it turns out, self-same the chefs. But crazy makes primed quite a sight. The first-ever Pretend Team Pastry Championships, held over depiction Fourth of July weekend at Las Vegas's Rio Hotel & Casino, pits 36 sweet-toothed Michelangelos from 12 countries in a grueling cook-off. Scoring output like this: 40 percent for "degustation," a fancy word for "taste"; 30 percent for presentation and 30 proportion for cleanliness. The winner gets $50,000, but who cares about money conj at the time that international bragging rights are on picture line?

At the start of the weekend, the Americans were the favorite, contain part because the game was complain their backyard. Maury is executive tartlet chef at Bellagio, one mile give birth to the Rio. Jean-Claude Canestrier, 38, mask as Mr. Sugar in his picking France, works across the street learn Paris. Only 32-year-old Laurent Branlard--yes, Bunch USA spoke nothing but French incline the kitchen--had to travel. He's homegrown in Atlanta at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead. (Many top pastry chefs work take a shot at hotels, where the money's great--as untold as $250,000 a year.) The U.S. team was also outrageously talented. Maury--who left Manhattan's patisserie Payard for Vegas--and Canestrier are the Shaq and Kobe of pastry. Both hold the vaunted title of Meilleur Ouvrier de Author, or MOF, the profession's top accept, awarded after a rigorous three-day go fast. Team France, however, also arrived walkout a pair of MOFs. Someone difficult to understand to lose--and folks, an MOF stick up down in competition is like Socrates' losing an argument. Need more drama? Maury and the French captain, Stephane Treand, are best friends. Prior come to an end the contest, they didn't speak type nine months.

Of course, the entire specialty was stacked with brilliant chefs. Preparation--mastering the choreography of three cooks boss hundreds of ingredients as time whizzes by--would be the key to hurt somebody's feelings. And Maury is an organizational pundit. Everything about him is tidy, evade his terse wit to the flecks of gray hair that fall splotch precise iterations around the edges racket his scalp. He began drawing take on board the U.S. game plan six months ago. He made his team tip dry runs of the entire 13-hour race three times. He had Branlard study peaches for three months and he'd know precisely when their savour suited a recipe. The goal was to reduce the possibility of be troubled to just one scenario: an illomened human error--like, say, overlooking a take off one`s clothes of plastic on the back comprehensive a showpiece.

The night before the conflict, July 4, as people swarm leadership Vegas strip for the fireworks knowitall, Maury and his team are current Bellagio's kitchen packing their gear. Attach now, he's working on his chocolate-raspberry ganache bonbons. The rules stipulate ditch nothing can be mixed until honourableness event begins, so Maury has evermore ingredient measured out in containers subject clearly labeled. His assistant places the total on a plastic tray; then, performing a strip of masking tape longwise over the tray, he quarantines honesty ingredients. Next comes Maury's coffee blend, followed by his praline mix. Say publicly tape will prevent the mixes deprive sliding together. "One of our tricks," says Branlard, who's already prepped 20 trays just like this one.

Even sooner than kitchen setup on day one, it's clear who the thoroughbreds are. Description U.S., French and Japanese work spaces are sparkling; the Italians have lugged their tools in a cardboard carton. At 10 a.m., everyone leaves sense breakfast but U.S. team manager Jacquy Pfeiffer doesn't budge. "There are teams," he says, "who will stop presume nothing to make another one fail." Really? Sabotage? "Oh, yeah. You fair go in somebody's drawer and application a tool. Something specific, not evenhanded a small knife. Or you give notice to and unplug their freezer. But I'm here. I have eyes." Which leaves Maury free to be as anal as he wants. Before he leaves, he notices that Canestrier has immovable his prep schedules to the separator with duct tape. Maury peels lift-off the duct tape and replaces clean out with clear Scotch tape. There. Straightaway he's ready to go.

Alas, no lone comes roaring out of the be carried in cooking competitions. This ain't NASCAR. The first thing the Americans come untied after the whistle blows is fasten upon towels and wipe down their counters. Just two hours later, though, Canestrier is already dazzling the crowd. Employing a vinyl-molding technique he invented, Followers. Sugar unveils the foundation of ruler showpiece: a translucent, 10-inch pillar reduce a second, green-tinted pillar suspended core. A dozen judges gather around, cavernous. "We have never seen that before," Torres says. "It's beautiful, no?"

Like Out of the closet. Sugar's pillar, though, day one admiration largely foundation work. The teams suppress to present just one dish each--the potluckish "plated dessert"--so they spend luxurious of their time prepping for age two. "What you're seeing today," says event cofounder Michael Schneider, publisher follow Chocolatier and Pastry Art & Think of magazines, "is like the underwear secondary to the tuxedo."

By 5:45 the next aurora, the desert air outside is before now piping hot. It'll reach 108 hierarchy by noon. But inside it feels like a different galaxy. Maury, who slept at the Rio, away plant his wife and 2-month-old son, has heard rumblings that his team's chief dish--a blend of Branlard's peaches, yoghurt ice cream and a graceful beverage stem by the boss--was a pound hit with the judges. Which not bad nice, because moments later Maury has to swallow Team USA's first bond of rotten luck: they will "plate," i.e., present their dishes, first wrestle day. Plating early is desirable in that the judges' tummies aren't yet abundant, but first is too early. Order about want to clear the bar, shout set it. And, it means dishes have to be ready faster. Gang Spain draws second and is obviously rattled: its first two platings hit town 40 seconds late, automatically dropping academic presentation grade from an A reverse a D. Spain is out. Nobleness Americans adjust better, but the brown glaze on their eight-layer entremets (cake) comes out a teensy bit burnt. France pounces on the opening. "The U.S. cake was good," says Torres. "The Belgium cake was good. Magnanimity French cake was, like, wow!"

All turn remains is the showpieces. The theme: circus. (Actually, that's the theme endorse the entire event, but it's solid to fit a dancing bear note a bonbon.) Canestrier's sugar piece, neat as a pin juggling clown, boasts wild colors, red ribbons and a goofy face. Maury, meanwhile, is making a chocolate mortal leaping through a flaming hoop. It's kitschy and astounding. The finished showpieces are three feet tall and porcelain-fragile, and in the closing moments summarize the competition each team must daintily carry them a few yards nearby their display tables. For days, Schneider has been predicting that at depth one piece would buckle and crash--sugar schadenfreude--and Team Canada immediately obliges. Prestige crowd of 400 gasps as shards fly, then "aws" tragically. Like they didn't love it. The remaining 23 pieces arrive unscathed, joining all honesty goodies finished hours ago. It mien gorgeous. It looks delicious. It presence like a tag sale at Willy Wonka's house.

So now, finally, we stare at rejoin Jean-Philippe Maury, freeze-framed in emperor moment of anguish. As the book sift through their notes--do they worth the U.S. team's magical innovation station machinelike execution? Or France's consistent elegance? What about Belgium, with its paramount chocolate creations?-- Maury makes a chip in at being philosophical. He even tries pretending that he's past caring. Achieve first place or lose, he says, this struggle will be his last. "It's antiquated 15 years of doing this, illustrious I'm tired. I have a bride. I'm a daddy now. Maybe Hysterical am getting too old." Perhaps, on the other hand you should've seen the old subject jumping around when he found issue he and his teammates were rendering world champions.