Darra Goldstein

Hermé, Pierre

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets
Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets

By Darra Goldstein

Published 2015

  • About

Hermé, Pierre (1961–), has, since the late 1990s, been the most internationally renowned patissier of the grand French tradition and its greatest contemporary innovator. Jeffrey Steingarten dubbed him the “Picasso of Pastry” in Vogue magazine.

A fourth-generation pastry maker, Hermé left his native Alsace for Paris after the celebrated patissier Gaston Lenôtre (1920–2009) noticed him there before Hermé had even turned fourteen. Just five years later, Lenôtre entrusted a high-profile boutique to his wunderkind apprentice.