Nina Métayer — The Power of Delicacy

You were voted World's Best Pastry Chef by your peers in 2023, then World's Best Pastry Chef by the World's 50 Best in 2024. What drives you since receiving these accolades?
The same thing as ever! The desire to create special moments and to take care of those around me — my kitchen team, my family, and my friends — who all do the same for me. Then there's the desire to bring people joy! That's what really drives me, even more than the cakes and pastries which, at the end of the day, are just tools for these experiences.

Speaking of pastries, you often talk about people, the collective, and emotion — in an industry whose watchwords are rigor and technique.
That's true, but these ideas are not mutually exclusive. Especially because technique and control are exactly what fuel our passion, our search for perfection. I was drawn to being a pastry chef because I understood that not only was it possible to make incredible things, but I could also improve and challenge myself every day. The key to this search for excellence is emotion — ours and those we inspire in the people around us.

Will prestigious pastries inevitably be found in places of excellence, such as Michelin-star restaurants?
Not necessarily. I believe that luxury pastries rely on three things: a passionate chef, exceptional products, and a lover of food who knows how to truly appreciate a dessert. I like the idea of making excellence accessible to lots of people — which is what I'm doing through my collaboration with Air France this year.

You have called your pâtisserie La Délicatisserie. Is delicacy a luxury of our modern times?
It's a value that I particularly love, both in my work and in my daily life. The word was chosen by the people around me — they must have thought it suited me. I certainly see it as a form of elegance.