Jérôme Raffaelli, Oh Faon, sweet spot

Clichés have a hard life and the pastry "without" does not escape it. Yet, sometimes all it takes is a recipe to see our certainties shattered. Jérôme Raffaelli’s desserts are undeniably part of that category. In the streets of Marseille, shout "oh fan!" amounts to expressing astonishment, with a force inversely proportional to the elegance of the expression. Pun perfectly found for the Marseille pastry chef and his surprising "Oh Faon!", all in greed, and this time in subtlety.

Far from excluding or blaming, the desserts designed by Jérôme are meant to bring people together. Frank smile and radiant sweetness, he likes above all to share his love for French pastry, adapted to its ethical and eco-friendly values. "I have been a vegetarian for 20 years, I even went vegan for a while. Beyond the definitions, the project is part of an approach that aims to be virtuous and that addresses everyone. Our neighborhood represents 80% of our clientele. Our success lies in the fact that we did not limit the plant to the audience it was originally intended for, and that we became the right local pastry shop," he explains.

After leaving the world of cinema that had made him dream as a child, Jérôme knew he wanted to move into catering. "Every time I asked myself questions about my career change, I knew that I wanted to cook. It may be related to my environment: my grandfather was a butcher, my uncle a restaurateur, and, as an Italian-Mediterranean family, meals have always been very important.” He groped for a while before enrolling in CAP pastry course and it was upon learning how to make pastries that he had a revelation: "the gesture, the feeling, that’s what I’ve been looking for all these years," he recalls with undiminished enthusiasm, adding "I was lucky to find another passion job."

At the same time, her husband Kevin Yau no longer feels he belongs in the consulting industry. The moment is therefore propitious. Together, they feel "this essential need for creation" and both start in a small lab to sell their pastries to restaurants and markets. In 2019, they open their first shop. «From the beginning we knew that we could not copy a classic pastry shop window, so we started with creations that speak to us and please us. Looking for recipes that didn’t exist, I really liked it." If it was, according to him, "quite easy" for them to do without milk or cream of animal origin, doing so without egg required more work and technical mastery. On the supplier side, they naturally turned to producers close to Marseille in line with the seasonal nature of the products. Their sustainable approach was thus rewarded by La Liste in 2023 and then by Fou de Pâtisserie in 2024. "These awards have made us want to go further," smiles Jérôme. They then decide to stop working with exotic fruits and to exclude all fruit purees. They also pay particular attention to the traceability of their groceries from ethical and responsible sources. "Today it is obvious to work according to these criteria. When we have become aware of the destructive effect of certain polluting monocultures, without a fair compensation for farmers, we cannot go back. I think that as processors of these products, our responsibility is too important.”

This refinement in sourcing highlighted one of Jerome’s mantras: "the less, the better." Because at "Oh Faon!" simplicity predominates. "I like when you find the flavors announced in the cake, legibility and sobriety are essential. I’m not looking for a complex set of textures or a visual that makes too much of it," says the pastry chef. Just like his creation "Framboisette", which he describes as "a rather lively dessert with the tangy side of raspberry and comforting side of tarragon, it’s the garden dessert in high summer." The customers, always more numerous, will soon be able to let themselves be surprised in the new shop of Jérôme, which will open in the district of Malmousque.

Oh Faon !
6 rue Edmond Rostand, 13006 Marseille