A Dream Visit to the Élysée: From Historic Silverware to Presidential Pastries

We descend the stairs and reach the corridors beneath the palace, which appear to me like a royal maze that adds to the special atmosphere enveloping the place. I imagine the people who have walked here throughout the hundreds of years the palace has existed, the small conversations, the secrets, the luminaries who stepped here – did kings pass through here? Presidents? Important people? If only walls could talk.

At the entrance to the Élysée kitchens, we are greeted by Lun-Yi Hsing, the President’s pastry chef. He shakes our hands in greeting and sees that I’m mesmerized by the heavy copper pots placed on the shelves. Without speaking, he pulls out one of the copper vessels, turns its bottom towards us, and signals me to come closer. “This is from Fontainebleau,” he says quietly and gets excited along with me.

I remember the first time I saw the movie “Haute Cuisine.” I sat stunned in front of the screen and absorbed every frame, every word, every French expression, every dish. I was captivated by Hortense Laborie (Catherine Frot), the passionate chef from Périgord who is called to “55,” code name for the Élysée Palace located at 55 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. The talented chef arriving from a small village is offered the position of President Mitterrand’s personal chef, a role that makes her one of the closest people to the President.

Laborie’s path to the heart of the Élysée kitchens is filled with difficulties. She encounters French classical cuisine in all its glory, power plays and ego, machismo and chauvinism, and especially entire protocols of rules and officials who stand between her and the President. But in her own way, she forges her path and builds her position as the private chef of the Republic’s most important man, the one who knows exactly what he likes to eat in the middle of the night when he sneaks into the kitchen.

“Before we enter the kitchens, I want to take you to a very interesting department, the Argentier department (silverware),” Hsing signals us to follow him. We walk through more corridors, going up, down, losing ourselves behind the scenes of the palace and feeling just like Hortense Laborie in her first moments at the Élysée.

And then the door opens and we find ourselves in an amusement park of tableware, silver and gold pieces – we’re inside the palace’s Argentier department. We are greeted with a big smile and white gloves by Stéphane Guenaud, deputy to Sylvain Pomart, manager of the Argentier department.

“Welcome to our department,” announces Guenaud and begins to arrange various types of magnificent plates on a table covered with a white tablecloth. After 27 years in the tableware department, Guenaud knows each and every plate, every glass and fork, every service and silver pitcher – he knows all 20,000 pieces of tableware arranged in cabinets and heavy wooden boxes, they were all his children.

“The items in the palace must be from French manufacturers, for example Manufacture de Sèvres, Bernardaud, Saint-Louis, Baccarat, Christofle, and others. The oldest piece in our department is from 1822,” he explains with enthusiasm that excites us.

“We have about 20 different types of plates we can play with. Our job is to choose the tableware that will accompany each meal, ensure all chosen pieces are in perfect condition, then set the table wearing gloves, measure the distances between each plate, and after the meal wash the items by hand. Even when dealing with thousands of pieces after a large event, everything is washed by hand, sometimes taking several days,” Guenaud explains proudly.

I ask Guenaud how the relationship works between the Argentier department and the kitchen and pastry departments. “The relationship is continuous and daily. We receive the menu from the coordination department with the number of courses, number of guests, and location of the meal in the palace. After receiving the menu, we contact the chef and pastry chef, and together decide on the plates in which the courses will be served. Simultaneously, we are in contact with the Fleuriste (flower department) and the Lingère (tablecloths and napkins department).”

Guenaud is full of passion and doesn’t stop pulling out more and more special pieces from the cabinets. He feels that we too are excited and want to absorb more and more information. “We are here to put French table art, the French Savoir Faire, in the spotlight – we deal in gastro-diplomacy. This profession isn’t taught in any school; we are all graduates of hotel schools, but we learned this profession here. We set the table in French style, for example placing the fork upside down (see in the picture), this comes from medieval times and is a less aggressive arrangement than pointing the fork upwards.”

To my question about sales of items that are no longer in use by the palace, Guenaud explains that there are none and adds that there are items, for example those from Sèvres, that are on loan to the palace, meaning they belong to Manufacture de Sèvres who can reclaim them at any moment. Of course, from their perspective, the best showcase for displaying their items is the Élysée Palace, so one can assume this demand won’t come. “We have Sèvres plates that take between 80 to 100 hours of work to create. Everything is hand-painted, so each plate is unique and not exactly identical to another plate from the same set.”

“I really love the plates from the Pompidou era. We have several types of plates that were painted by artists, but there are few of each such set, so these sets can’t be suitable for every meal – only for meals with a specific number of participants. In other words, everything depends on the number of participants at the dîner d’État (a dinner with a head of state officially visiting France). When choosing the tableware for the meal, I can only propose to Madame Macron sets that are suitable for the number of people, and she will choose from among them the pieces in which the courses will be served during the meal.”

To conclude our meeting with the charming Guenaud, I ask him if he dreams about the tableware he has been caring for decades. “I’ll tell you that after I return from annual vacation, the night before returning to work, I get very excited to return to the palace. I love my work very much, the atmosphere, the team, and the value we provide.”

“Wait a moment before you move to the pastry department, I want to show you something special.” Guenaud takes down from the shelf an item covered in fabric, he removes the fabric slowly and reveals to us the serviteur muet, a magnificent serving stand for cakes and cookies from 1889. Intoxicated with silverware and fascinating anecdotes, we bid farewell to Guenaud and leave the silverware department for the pastry department.

Hsing leads us to the magnificent kitchens of the Élysée, spacious work surfaces, ovens, refrigerators, and everything clean and polished as befitting presidential kitchens. I’m as excited as if I had seen the President himself – this is a very important place, where magic is concocted that will later be served to distinguished guests from around the world.

It’s fascinating to know that the Élysée’s pastry chef is actually from Taiwan, in my opinion this trivia detail is very interesting and also shows the openness occurring in recent years in the French culinary world. The 38-year-old Hsing served in the Taiwanese army as a cook and afterward stayed in the army to save money for studies in France. His love affair with the pastry world began when he attended a gastronomic salon in Taiwan, where French desserts were showcased. The moment the young chef saw the desserts, he knew that’s what he wanted to do in the future.

In 2012, he came to France alone to study pastry and in 2015 was accepted for an internship in the staff restaurant of the Élysée Palace. Guillaume Gomez, who was then the chef of the Élysée Palace, took the young pastry chef under his wing, greatly appreciating his motivation, dedication, and desire to learn more and more. “During that time, I almost slept at work, I spent many hours in the Élysée kitchens until the small hours of the night. When everyone went home, I still stayed to work and learn to improve more and more,” the chef recounts.

Entering the Élysée Palace changed the career path the young chef had dreamed of. His partner who remained in Taiwan moved to France after they married, and together they decided to continue living in the Republic until further notice. In 2021, after about 6 years in the palace’s pastry laboratory, Hsing was appointed as the Élysée’s pastry chef, a prestigious position that in recent years, with French pastry becoming an object of interest worldwide, is becoming even more important.

Is there a favorite dessert of President Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron? “I can’t talk about a specific dessert preferred by the President and Madame, but in general, I have free rein to propose desserts, I have carte blanche.” It should be noted that both in the Argentier department and in the pastry laboratory, they avoid talking about the preferences of the President and First Lady; naturally, there are things kept behind closed doors.

Tell us a bit about the process of creating a dessert for a presidential meal. “As I said, I have creative freedom. I like to create in the evening hours when the kitchen is quiet. Usually, I first think about the shape of the dessert I want to create, I draw the dessert and then dress it with flavors. Of course, the dessert as part of the complete menu is sent for approval, after approval it is sent to all departments that Guenaud from the Argentier department explained to you about. There are cases where the plate is chosen in advance and I adapt the dessert to the plate, and there are cases where the plate is chosen after the dessert creation is completed.”

Are there specific suppliers of raw materials you must work with? “Of course there’s the Marché Public, meaning I must work with suppliers chosen through tenders, but if there are specific ingredients these suppliers don’t have, of course I can bring them from other suppliers.”

Today in an era of various sensitivities to ingredients, celiac disease, dairy, veganism, etc., are you updated before each visit on this matter? “Definitely. There is a list of hundreds of allergens that the protocol checks with the guest’s team, and we receive all the information before the visit. Of course, every dessert I propose fits the list of sensitivities submitted to me in advance.”

When there are events for heads of state, do you try to adapt the desserts to the head of state’s country of origin? “Before official meals with heads of state, I try to check the guest’s preferences, search the internet, social networks, sometimes interesting information can be found. Additionally, I try to check through our embassy in the target country and through connections I sometimes have at the target country’s embassy in France if there’s information that can help or guide me.”

When the President travels to visits in other countries, do you accompany him as chefs and pastry chefs used to accompany kings in the past? “Today chefs usually don’t join the President’s trips, but there is a unique meal that the President holds each year before Christmas with French forces on missions in various locations. For such a meal, of course kitchen teams join because they prepare the meal.”

Is there a traditional dessert that has been prepared at the Élysée for many years and you continue to prepare? “The truth is that one of the interesting things about our work, and also one of the most challenging, is the fact that every day we need to concoct a new dessert. There are no desserts we produce regularly; of course if there are specific requests we’ll fulfill them, but every day the creation changes. On one hand it’s very interesting, on the other hand it’s challenging and not always simple for the team to move immediately to the next dessert.”

In addition to creating a new dessert every day, what are the big challenges in working at the Élysée? “We have many unexpected events, meals that suddenly get confirmed, meetings, there’s great dynamics in the work and you need to be very flexible. Additionally, after opening the Élysée shop, I basically had to create a new line of desserts suitable for the boutique, vitrine desserts that are completely different from desserts served at meals. This is of course challenging but also very exciting because my desserts are now exposed to anyone who wants to taste them and not just to the Élysée’s residents and guests. To continue being creative all the time, I do a lot of research on networks, internet, go to exhibitions, taste many desserts, and keep developing all the time.”

One of the most moving scenes in the movie “Haute Cuisine” is the President’s nighttime visit to the Élysée kitchen. Do the President and his wife visit you in the dessert laboratory? “Yes, it happens sometimes. Before the State Dinner for U.S. President Biden, Madame Macron came down to greet the kitchen and pastry staff and encourage them before the meal; of course this brings motivation to the whole team. These meals are very interesting because sometimes other chefs come to work with us like Pierre Hermé, Maxime Frédéric, etc. Sometimes there are meals where I’m even invited to the salon where the meal is taking place to be presented, certainly that’s very moving.”

What’s your favorite dessert and what’s your favorite ingredient? “My favorite dessert is Paris-Brest, I really love hazelnut praliné and in this dessert praliné is a central ingredient. I also really love buckwheat.” By the way, buckwheat is considered today one of the stars in the world of desserts and chocolate, and if worked with correctly, it’s simply a delicacy.

Do you have hobbies beyond pastry? “I love running, it gives me time for thought, releasing tension, and connecting with myself.”

After two and a half hours of fascinating and enriching visit, we parted with kisses from Hsing, who equipped us with chocolate for a souvenir and many moving moments we’ll cherish for life. By the way, when we spent time with him in the pastry laboratory, the chef let us taste wonderful chocolate bonbons he created, as well as excellent chocolate that’s part of a special product we’re not allowed to talk about, but it’s going to be part of the range of gifts the President can give to his guests.

Remember that dreams come true if you just work on making them happen,
Yours, Sharon