(Paris) Without sugar and designed as a gourmet plate around modern sauces: the multi-star French chef Yannick Alléno opens a chocolate shop in Paris on Thursday to make his vision known to the general public.
Following in the footsteps of another tenor, Alain Ducasse, the most starred chef in the world whose chocolate factory is very successful, the king of sauces Yannick Alléno embarks on the adventure by breaking out of the shackles of the traditional chocolate factory.
“The idea was not to make yet another Parisian chocolate maker. We start our learning about chocolate which allows us to arrive with a different eye and not to have the baggage of the past ”, declared Yannick Alléno to AFP before the inauguration of Alléno & Rivoire combining his name and that of its pastry chef Aurélien Rivoire at the Pavillon Ledoyen, 3 Michelin stars.
In this shop between the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides, you will find ganaches, pralines, sticks or clovers “ten times less sweet than traditional chocolates”. Their sweet taste comes from birch water and candied fruit.
“Our metabolism makes us understand what should not be ingested. When it comes to salt and sugar, which are not very good for your health, we, the chefs, have to find gourmet solutions by adopting a different style, ”underlines Yannick Alléno.
The shamrocks, the boutique’s signature creations, are eight-gram candies, two-thirds of the weight of which is made with sauce and which are enclosed in a crispy capsule.
“The construction in this little chocolate is the same as one imagines for a 3-star plate”, explains Aurélien Rivoire to AFP, according to which chocolate is “a support for innovative sauces”.
In these “eight grams, we have an understanding of gastronomy without having to enter a three star”, concludes Yannick Alléno.