There’s a particular kind of pressure that comes with representing 160 years of French culinary history in a country better known for braais than for mille-feuille.
Arno Ralph, head pastry chef at Ladurée South Africa and recently named Pastry Chef of the Year by Luxe, knows better than anyone what that pressure feels like.
Ladurée, the legendary Parisian patisserie founded in 1862, opened the doors to its branch at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town around three months ago. Ralph, who joined last year, is the man responsible for translating one of the world’s most storied luxury food brands for a local market known more for meat and alcohol than for beautifully crafted pastries.
Ralph’s path to the top of South Africa’s pastry world began not in a professional kitchen but in his grandmother’s home. “I was always cooking with her — making cookies, puddings, desserts,” he says. There was always a recipe book and “always the question of what can we make this weekend”.
If he wasn’t going to go into food, it would have been music or art. “For me, it’s an expression of art. Food is the same as music — it can transport you to a memory, a place, a feeling, just by taking one bite.”
His professional career took him through some of South Africa’s most prestigious kitchens. He spent five years at One&Only Cape Town, trained with chocolate giant Lindt & Sprüngli for another five years, and went on to lead the Chocolate Academy at Barry Callebaut in Johannesburg, where he was the brand’s technical face for the trade, training everyone from fine dining chefs to industrial producers in the art of working with chocolate.
Along the way, he won bronze at the Culinary Olympics in 2016 and gold at the Global Chef Challenge in the pastry category. He joined Ladurée to head South African operations in August.
Ladurée started as a tearoom for women at a time when men went to cigar lounges and women didn’t have a space to go. Now, the Parisian patisserie is most famous for its macarons — delicate, jewel-coloured sandwich cookies associated with Parisian luxury around the world.
The V&A branch has a certain feminine elegance, whether due to its Marie Antoinette teas and macarons or pastries named after historical French women such as Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III.
One of the most popular pastries is the Ispahan, a rose macaron filled with raspberries and lychees, created by legendary pastry chef Pierre Hermé, also known as “the Picasso of macarons”.
Executing that kind of culinary excellence in South Africa, however, means working within strict global brand standards. Every pastry on the Ladurée menu, whether in Paris, Tokyo, New York or Cape Town, must taste and look identical. Ralph spent three months training at Ladurée’s production facility in Morangis, south of Paris, before the local doors opened. He meets with the international chefs every Monday via video call to discuss what’s happening on the ground.
One of the more nuanced parts of Ralph’s job is understanding what the South African market will and won’t embrace. The Ladurée catalogue is very European, and some options don’t translate as easily into a local market. Take fruit, for instance. In France and Japan, fresh and vibrant fruit-based pastries are bestsellers but the same can’t be said of Cape Town. “People here want the pistachio pastry, the chocolate, the caramel — the decadence,” says Ralph.
The question then becomes: what does sell? As it turns out, three Ladurée classics have emerged as the outright bestsellers since opening. The Ispahan, the rose, raspberry and lychee macaron, is one. Another is the Plaisir Sucré, a hazelnut and milk chocolate mousse cake whose name translates to “sweet pleasure”. Then there is the flan. “I don’t know if it’s because it’s the closest thing to a milk tart,” Ralpha says. “But it’s our biggest seller.”
Given how closely Ladurée is associated with macarons and pastries and all things sweet, I was surprised that they serve really well-executed savoury options. During our visit, we shared a delicious salade burrata and cucumber avocado gazpacho, followed by vol-au-vent Grand Tradition and grilled salmon. Of course, we had to taste some macarons, chosen partly by their enticing names and colours, and they certainly don’t disappoint.
The pricing is just as premium as the products themselves. Last year, the Ladurée Advent Calendar, designed as a festive pyramid of white and gold macarons, was priced at €115 (R2,228) in stores and €120 on the website (R2,324).
It is not a product aimed at the average South African consumer and yet Ralph notes local customers do pay for luxury. “It’s maybe just wanting that slice of luxury.” The proof is in the pudding and weekends at their store at the Waterfront are noticeably busy, with dessert sales more than doubling compared to weekdays.
In the end, though, it’s about craft. It’s smaller portions, higher quality, better ingredients and an awareness of where those ingredients come from and what they do.
“People want to know they’re eating something made with care,” he says. “Not an oversized something, but something smaller and very well crafted.”
For Ralph, bringing Ladurée to South Africa feels like more than just a job: “To be part of this is quite extraordinary — even if it is a little nerve-wracking.”
Wanted
