Who was Gaston Lenôtre?

Gaston Lenôtre makes an interesting subject for a post in light of the discussions going on in the comment fields down in the They Ain’t What They Used to Be post. Allow me to explain.

The name Lenôtre is legendary in France, and in food industry circles around the globe. It stands for a man — an exacting and genial fellow who was both respected and loved — but also for a global empire of schools, pastry shops, restaurants and catering facilities. I think of him as the first truly modern master pâtissier, a man who not only had formidable culinary and leadership skills, but an instinctive grasp of the potential of modern techniques, technologies and brands. He embraced it all while still staying true to his quality and craft ideals.

Perhaps it was his teenage experiences peddling homemade chocolates by bicycle that gave Lenôtre a lifelong fascination with the concepts of finished food delivery and scalability of production. He built the first chain of bakery boutiques Paris had ever seen. He was the first Frenchman to put a bakery/café in a shopping mall, the first to create a national brand of frozen desserts and the first person ever to create an international chain of bakery franchises. For all that, he never abandoned his commitment to perfect quality and execution. In time he expanded into full-menu restaurants and catering. With the help of large-scale production facilities and — gasp — freezers, Lenôtre was able to deliver perfectly crafted meals to any size crowd virtually anywhere in the world. Need a seven-course French meal for 10,000 served hot in Indonesia? Lenôtre was your man. In 1998 he catered the World Cup in France, attended by an estimated 800,000 fans.

Certainly he could not have achieved what he did had he not been a first-class practitioner of the culinary arts. He is often credited with introducing “nouvelle cuisine” concepts to the craft of pastry. That’s not strictly true if your definition of nouvelle cuisine is small portions and hyper-artsy presentations. If however when someone says the words “nouvelle cuisine” you think of freshness, lightness, simplicity and creativity of presentation, then the label fits. His books are filled with recipes whose simplicity belies their sophistication and excellence. Grab them where you can since most are now out of print in English. They’re true treasures.

Still, to me Lenôtre’s achievements as a practitioner pale in comparison to what he accomplished in the realm of food production and operations. He showed the world is that modern tools, when used thoughtfully, can be wonderful things; that technology isn’t inherently evil; that newfangled machines can make better food available to more people; and, that just because something is big it isn’t necessarily bad. No wonder that when Lenôtre celebrated his 80th birthday in 2000 his students made him a 35-foot-tall cake. Lenôtre died in January of 2009. He will be remembered as one of the century’s most creative and consequential chefs.

4 thoughts on “Who was Gaston Lenôtre?”

  1. I suppose unrelated to Andre Le Notre (don’t know which special keys give the accents and such) who designed the gardens of Versailles? I did check the Wiki, but the entry is quite short.

    1. Interesting connection! I have no idea but I’ll see what I can dig up!

      – Joe

  2. Thanks for the introduction Joe! He sounds like a guy I’d like to learn more about. Given how the French feel about locally made/small shop stuff vs. “factory food” I would imagine he caught some flack.

    I did read where recently there was a blind taste test of classic baguettes in France with 3 bakery loaves and 2 factory ones – the factory ones were rated as superior. I expect the clean up was a mess given the number of heads that must have exploded on that news.

    1. Hey Frankly!

      The great thing about that dude was that he proved that the tools don’t really matter if you care. But I think you’re right, there’s a lot of resistance to the new in French baking circles. For every Pierre Herm? that’s out there innovating there are a hundreds of traditional pastry makers who frown on new techniques because “this is how it’s always been done.” Or at least that’s what the French bakers I’ve met here in America tell me. These folks came to the States primarily because they had unlimited freedom to try out unconventional ideas.

      So yes I’m certain that Lenôtre encountered his share of naysayers, though my guess is that one taste of his food was enough to settle the argument.

      Thanks for the comment,

      – Joe

Leave a Reply to joepastry Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *