“Only fools don’t change their minds”: How Cédric Grolet became the world’s best pastry chef

A queue had begun snaking its way between the dark mahogany tables and rattan chairs of the pâtisserie at The Berkeley. We jostled our way to the front and caught sight of Cédric, chatting to customers and snapping selfies in front of a counter stocked full of pastries. “Crowds form quickly when word spreads that Cédric is in the building,” Emily Xueref-Poviac, Cedric’s business partner, smiles apologetically.

Cédric Grolet is a private man. In what little spare time he gets, he disappears home to France. “What I really prefer, above everything else, is to be in nature, in the countryside. I love to cook barbecues by the water with my friends and family,” he says. “I’ve been travelling so much over the last few years, so what I really enjoy now is just coming back to the simple experiences, going back to my roots and enjoying the low-key things in life.”

Hard to believe if you scroll through his Instagram, where an audience of 9.2 million watch avidly as he slices, pours, scoops and kneads pastries for the camera (think beignet croissants and cinnamon rolls). He counts the likes of Blake Lively, Rosalia, Martha Stewart and Zoe Saldana among his fans. Behind the hip-hop soundtracks and on-the-beat transitions, Cédric’s talent and passion for his craft are easily seen.

“I was really terrible at school, but when I started making pastry, all of a sudden, everything changed completely,” he says. “In my first internship at a bakery, the boss told me that he wanted to see my parents. I didn’t know why, so I just assumed that I was going to be told off again, like I had always been told off at school,” he admitted. “But when the conversation had finished, my parents said, ‘What have you been doing to your boss? He’s in love with all you’ve been doing and your creations.’ I was so relieved and happy that, finally, I’d be able to do something well, something I truly loved. I had been enjoying what I was doing and working with so much passion and energy, so I didn’t realise I was doing anything different – I was just having fun. But my boss clearly saw it when he looked at me.”