The Picasso of Pastry is none other than the inimitable French pastry chef Pierre Hermé as hailed by French Vogue, and anyone who walks into his jewelry store styled shops is stunned into submission.
André Soltner, the former chef at Lutèce in NYC and one of the deans at my cooking school, admonished us constantly that chefs are not artists, they are craftsmen. He continued that art is permanent; an artist can work on a creation as he pleases whereas a chef gets up every morning and "leaves it on the field" as they say on the gridiron. And you do it every day, day after long, greuling day, in his case for over 40 years. But...
...when it comes to Pierre Hermé and his patisseries, he is not only a dedicated chef producing the finest pastries day after day after day, he is undeniably an artist as his creations are not only visually stunning, they are structurally brilliant. By that I mean the combination of flavors, textures, colors, presentation, and there is always a surprise. In fact one of his pastries is indeed titled Surprise (soo-preeze), a delicate meringue cup filled with various delights.