François Perret

Perret came to the Ritz Paris for its 2016 reopening after the pastry kitchens of the George V, Le Meurice and the Shangri-La, and built a repertoire around the simplest French comforts done perfectly: the madeleine, served warm in a silver shell; the marble cake, cut thick; a honey dessert from the hotel’s hives; a vanilla mille-feuille. Named best restaurant pastry chef by his peers, he became a household name through a Netflix series filmed in the Ritz kitchen.

In 2021 the hotel opened Le Comptoir on the rue Cambon to sell his pieces to the street, and the counter has become as much part of his work as the Salon Proust. His style is nostalgic and exact: the childhood cake, rebuilt by a palace brigade.

Perret is the argument that a signature does not need to be spectacular; it needs to be right every day.