Last night, ICE hosted Dessert Professional’s 18th Annual Top Ten Pastry Chefs in America event.
The annual awards honor ten amazing pastry chefs for their contribution to the industry. This year the honorees included Antonio Bachour of Quattro at Trump Soho and Solea at W South Beach, Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez of PRINT at the Ink48 Hotel, Tariq Hanna of Sucré, Sylvain Leroy of Paris Gourmet, Francisco Migoya of the Culinary Institute of America, Jerome Landrieu of Barry Callebaut Chocolate Academy, Yoni Morales of Ark Las Vegas Restaurant Corporation, Oscar Ortega of Atelier Ortega, Ron Paprocki of Gordon Ramsay at The London and Jean-Francois Suteau of The Beverly Hills Hotel. The evening also included an award for Jacquy Pfeiffer, the co-founder, and owner of The French Pastry School in Chicago. Pfeiffer was one of the stars of Kings of Pastry, the acclaimed documentary about the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition. ICE has hosted this event in four of the past six years.
Past Top Ten winners have included ICE Chef Instructors Michelle Tampakis and alumni such as Nicole Kaplan and Claudia Fleming. The ten chefs were honored by Dessert Professional Executive Editor Matthew Stevens and given the chance to showcase their talent for the invited guests, members of the press and leading pastry professionals. Four of ICE’s kitchens were packed with people eager to sample the desserts. Some of the highlights included Panna Cotta with Peach Sorbet, Morello Cherry and Peach Pearl, Cherry Gel Sheet and Cellophane of Sugar made by Antonio Bachour, an elaborate chocolate showpiece from Jean-Francois Suteau and over six different cakes from Oscar Ortega. Each of the chefs made over 300 servings of their dessert, each an elaborate and delicious testament to the chefs’ skills in the pastry arts.
Special guests included Michael Laiskonis of Le Bernardin, Alex Espiritu of the Valrhona École du Grand Chocolat and author Rose Levy Beranbaum. The event was also a chance for ICE students to work with these amazing chefs. Several ICE students volunteered to work with the chefs throughout the day helping them construct and prepare the desserts — an amazing opportunity to see these award-winning chefs in action and learn from their experience. For more photos from the evening, check out this slideshow:
