MEETING
with
Délicatisserie
World’s Best Pastry Chef 2023
, by the International Union of Bakers and Pastry Chefs
In many ways, Nina Métayer is breathing new life into French patisserie. Winning one award after another for the past ten years, she decided this time to climb to the pinnacle of recognition, the institution of the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition. If she wins this competition, reputed to be the most difficult and incompatible with a family life, she will be the first woman to win the title of MOF pâtissier, and will become a role model for many other women who dare to take the plunge.
More and more professionals are wearing Lafont, it’s a bit like a family, we communicate a lot with each other and we try to make the models progress together in a CSR approach.
This personal challenge illustrates Nina’s ambitious and committed character, as she is convinced that women are not recognized for their true worth, having come up against misogyny in the industry at close quarters. Today, she divides her time between Normandy, where she lives and has set up a multifunctional laboratory, and Paris, where she maintains contact with customers and, for the time being, delivers pastries to the Île-de-France region. “We have plans for the whole of France,” confides Nina, for whom nothing seems impossible.
Born into a family from La Rochelle who passed on a true taste for things, cooking is a subject of the utmost importance to the Métayer family. However, Nina doesn’t have any particular passion for cooking and sweet things; she’s more interested in discovering the world. Her first breakthrough came at the age of 16, during a school exchange to Mexico. It was there that she fell in love with bread, in contact with a French family. She returned to France and decided to take a work-study bakery CAP in La Rochelle. With her eyes riveted on Mexico, where she wants to settle, the young woman dreams of criss-crossing the planet with the idea of sharing French know-how internationally. On her return to France, she realized that she needed to complete her training and chose the Ecole Ferrandi in Paris, where she graduated top of her class.
Then it was all over, and she joined Yannick Alleno’s brigade at Le Meurice as a commis. She quickly became half-chef de partie. In 2015, Jean-François Piège, who is aiming for two MICHELIN stars for his new address, the Grand Restaurant, appointed her head pastry chef – a new challenge she rose to with brio. The restaurant was awarded its two stars a year later. Crowned by her peers in 2016, with the title of “Pâtissière de l’année 2016” by Le Chef magazine, then the following year, Pâtissière de l’année by the Gault et Millau guide, the distinctions follow one another at lightning speed. Now it’s the general public’s turn to discover the young woman’s face on M6’s hit show Le Meilleur pâtissier, on France 2’s Qui sera le prochain grand pâtissier and on Teva’s Sucrément bon. With a solid reputation that makes her one of the most influential pastry chefs of her generation, Nina feels the winds of independence blowing through her. After heading up the Café Pouchkine group’s sweet creations, she migrated to London for a while to work on the Mercato Metropolitano creation project, while continuing to pass on her know-how via her Youtube channel and to the 120,000 followers on Instagram she keeps on her toes every week with her desserts.
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