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Vanessa Yung

Have you always wanted to be a pastry chef? "No. When I was young, I was not a good student. So when I was 15 years old, I started to learn pastry making. After understanding it bit by bit, it became my life. Before that, I'd been baking a little bit every Wednesday. Students in France get Wednesdays off so a lot of times I would make a yogurt cake."
What motivates you to continue doing it?  "It's my love for creation and pastry. For 25 years, it was a job. Now I have my world of pastry - éclairs - with my brand. My life as a pastry chef is finished - I have a team of chefs. Now I am a businessman and creator."

Where do you find inspiration? "I don't have a recipe for that. I'm inspired by my travels, the seasons and where we open our shops. My creations are fuelled by a lot of things - colours, magazines and my feelings. The éclair is a very old pastry - it was first created in 1850. Three years [after I started my business] the éclair is very new and modern. I love that it's possible to work with a lot of flavours and decorations. We are brothers - me and the éclair - I live with him."
We are brothers - me and the éclair - I live with him
Which éclair is your favourite? "Salted butter caramel. I love it. It's simple. It's No1 - all our éclairs are numbered. When I was young - I'm from Brittany [in France] - we ate a lot of caramel. For me, éclair caramel is like vanilla mille-feuille - it's a classic and it's made me famous. It's the bestseller wherever we open."
What are some of the more interesting new flavours? "We have matcha bambou and marron myrtille. The latter we created a long time ago in France but we've never sold it. It's chestnut with blueberry and we made it just for the opening in Hong Kong. We offer 10 flavours each day but we change around two to three éclairs every month."
Are you planning to open more shops around the globe? "Maybe. I would like to. In Dubai, New York and more in Hong Kong, of course."
What is the perfect éclair? "My next creation. I look into the future, never in the past."


How chef Christophe Adam, of L'éclair de génie, fell in love with pastry

Photo: May Tse

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The Frenchman, in Hong Kong to open pop-up stores of his patisserie, L'éclair de génie,tells us the perfect éclair is always around the corner in his "world of pastry".


The Frenchman, in Hong Kong to open pop-up stores of his patisserie, L'éclair de génie, tells us the perfect éclair is always around the corner in his "world of pastry".
