Giovanni Malécot, Breizh of the best

This word is used in all sorts of ways: "best". Have we visited all the pastry shops in France? Do we pretend to have an absolute palate? Of course not. Nevertheless, it was quite a slap in the face to discover the work of the Maison Malécot, located in Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine). We tasted one day, then two, then every day for weeks. Everything was at the level of the greatest Parisian palaces. The lemon cake, the country bread, the homemade biscuit cone with brown butter and vanilla), the ice creams, also homemade of course, the Breton honey croissant, the thick hot chocolate... And then this anthology kouign-amann, a cuddly toy that seems less greasy than the competition.

Several times, we saw the co-founder and pastry chef of the place, Giovanni Malécot. Without stopping in the oven and in the mill before we talk to him "in real life", then at greater length on the phone. We were talking about palaces: the 36-year-old craftsman made part of his scales at Le Bristol, at the time of the late highly respected Laurent Jeannin, head pastry chef who dazzled the entire sweet planet with his gastronomic dessert that imitates a whole lemon. One of his dreams comes true when he enters one of the most beautiful hotels in the country. Giovanni Malécot even accompanied his boss on a demonstration in Moscow, having to urgently make a passport that he did not have. While he now praises the creative side of the brigade, he also points to an "almost bad rigor". "When you are taught how to lift a grapefruit, you throw away most of the fruit... ". Giovanni's time at Le Bristol corresponds to obtaining the third star in the Michelin guide, it was in 2009, for the Epicure restaurant, at the time managed, on the stove side, by Éric Frechon.

The passion for pastry of the young Breton, who grew up near Vitré (Ille-et-Vilaine), began early. Already in primary school, he had cravings for cakes that he prepared with his mother. "I was an interior guy: my father was a mason, he tried three or four weekends to take me with him to construction sites, but it didn't work. I liked the cocooning side of baking. When I was in 6th grade, we should have written what we wanted to do later, and I had written 'I want to make cakes'. It made the class and the committee of delegates laugh. For them, it was not a job."

At the end of secondary school, the young Giovanni moved to Mayenne to join a vocational high school. Subsequently, he discovered the life of a great restaurant, that of Jean-Pierre Crouzil, who put the village of Plancoët (Côtes-d'Armor) on the French gastronomic map with its two stars in the Michelin guide. There are good things - vanilla ice cream prepared at the beginning of the service, herbs from the garden - as well as not so good. "I don't want to say that you are being massacred, but not far away. We had to deal with guys of 40-50 years old with some completely crazy behavior." Giovanni can still thank Jean-Pierre Crouzil, who died in 2020: in exchange for a visit to the Élysée Palace on a chocolate mission, he will take Giovanni into the grand hotel of his choice, which will be the Bristol.

It's not just the starred dishes: Giovanni learned from the most serious boutiques, such as the Maison Bouvier in Rennes, a traditional shop where they sell old-fashioned pieces such as the polonaise, a round brioche filled with pastry cream with candied fruit. "Even then, I said to myself, 'Wow, what a strength not to be influenced by today's fashions'. The Maison Bouvier did not copy. That's what I tell my young people: 'Make an identity pastry, go to the end of what you have deep inside you'". Another highlight for the Breton was his meeting with Romaric Boilley, from the Délices des Sens pastry shop. On site, Giovanni wants to go back to basics, in a place where old-fashioned grinders allow pastry chefs to be real workers and to make even marzipan. "What I liked was the raw side of craftsmanship to know my job from A to Z. There are people who have worked for 10 years in a palace, but who don't know how to achieve certain things."

Then came the period abroad, partly to learn English. New York to start with, at Per Se, one of the most prestigious restaurants in the city. Éric Frechon writes a recommendation to chef Thomas Keller, but the missive gets lost on the way. No problem, Giovanni Malécot still goes to the Big Apple and asks for a moment with Thomas Keller with the nerve. Bingo, he enters this embassy of haute cuisine after having waited a few months in France for administrative matters. Outside the borders, the Breton doesn't have his tongue in his pocket either and dares to ask why you have to throw away the chocolate cream after 2 days. "Why not send it to a lab to check how good it is? You can't do implementation just for the sake of implementation," the young man wondered, causing incomprehension among his peers.

His partner Clémence, who has since become his wife, moved to Anne-Sophie Pic and left to study in Brussels. Giovanni followed her, worked in high-flying gastronomic restaurants (Le Petit bon bon, Le Chalet de la Forêt**) where he took the position of pastry chef and did not hesitate, before being recruited, to ask not to work in the evenings. The teams are surprised, but it works, it's all a question of preparation and implementation, according to the main interested party. His experience in Brussels continued with a business of his own, but the time came to return home with his other half, to Brittany. Rennes was once mentioned but life is too sweet in Saint-Malo, where a former hair-coloured bar in an extremely good location was sold before being available for purchase again. Banco! It will be for Clémence and Giovanni Malécot, who are inaugurating their home during Covid, at a time when most shops are being asked to close... except bakeries and pastry shops.

With such a neat window display of this quality, word of mouth was not long in coming: in a short time, the cinnamon roll, the pride of the pastry chef, saw its sales triple, from 15 to 50 pieces sold daily. If you are passing through Saint-Malo, go and order a ham and butter, assembled to order: first the large one-kilo wheel, sliced. Then the butter from Bordier, the great local reference. Finally, the Comté cheese with 18 months of maturation and the beautiful nitrite-free ham. So maybe the absolute palace doesn't exist, and yet...