Key lime tarts, pineapple ‘exotics’, passion fruit and vanilla, chocolate nuggets or peanut bites They shine in the delicious showcase of Robuchon restaurantWhere breakfast and snack pastries are prepared throughout the night for African Marcelino (Tenerife, 1994). First thing in the morning, she might turn out traditional French pastries, which she reinvents with more natural, lighter ingredients and splits the sugar and butter in Gallic desserts. “We want to respect the essence and tradition of classic desserts, but give them a healthier and more modern twist,” explains this prestigious high school-trained pastry chef. kitchen Le Cordon Bleu.
African Marcelino makes the desserts that sweeten the meals. Atelier and L’Ambassade de Robuchon, In Madrid’s Paseo de la Castellana 12 street. “The most successful one for lunch and dinner is the ‘soufflé’ with both lemon and ‘Grand Marnier’. “It’s increasingly rare on restaurant menus,” he explains, checking the quality of his new purchase of organic chocolate. He puts the ‘little fours’ he serves with coffee on plates, Five authentic miniature sweet gems that can be taken in one bite.
You’ll need to change textures frequently for the lemon tarts and dark chocolate nuggets on display. ““But my favorite dessert is the vanilla ‘Exotic’ with pineapple, passion fruit and white chocolate.” It reveals the pastry chef surrounded by kilos of sugar, fresh eggs and fruit at the market, where he updates and lightens up France’s best-known desserts.
crispy croissant
The king of pastries in this temple of gastronomy is undoubtedly the crispy croissant. This is immediately followed by Swiss bread with pudding. “We have no choice but to use butter here, but we use Elle Vire, it is much healthier than other options,” Marcelino explains, next to a tray competing with Neapolitan chocolate chips and raisin peels. croissants stuffed with cured meat, goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes with pesto sauce.
The furnaces in the Robuchon workshop do not stop. “This goes on non-stop,” says baker Ángela Andrade (Peru, 1983). He was busy shaping the dough he had left to rest the day before. The types of bread served at the beginning of meals at Atelier are undoubtedly among the highlights of the menu: classic baguette, baguette with chorizo, savory croissant, puff pastry snails, comté cheese and parmesan bread and squid ink milk bread.
“We make all the breads here: hamburger buns, sandwich buns, brioche or toasties,” he adds, deciding together with the restaurant’s executive chef, Jorge González. When to start making the roscones de reyes that were so successful last year? “For this, in addition to the roscón, we will be making a ‘Gallete de Rois’ (King Cookie) as a tribute to Joel Robuchon, the famous chef who revolutionized French cuisine, who died in 2018 with a Michelin record,” stars, 32, in 2016.
The Robuchon Group has nearly thirty restaurants in Europe, North America and Asia and has 28 Michelin stars. In Madrid, it was placed in one of the most symbolic buildings in the history of Madrid restoration: The mansion that occupied the legendary Embassy Fulfilling one of the dreams of the French chef, who confesses that he is in love with Spain, its products and cuisine.
“Robuchon has always resisted opening restaurants in Spain out of respect for our gastronomy and, First of all, bars full of tapas,” recalls Jorge González, before talking about the legendary Nou Manolín: “Alicante bar” where the wonderful chef enjoys his portions.