I've always been interested in food; even as a child I was helping my mother in the kitchen, cooking for her and my older brother. I began working as a cook at the age of 14, learning the foundations of the job. Two years later I started in the pastry section and it was then I realised that all I would ever want to be was a pastry chef.
I've been lucky enough to work in some amazing restaurants. I was the head pastry chef at the three Michelin-starred Can Fabes in Barcelona when Joel Robuchon asked if I would head up the pastry team at his restaurant in London. After this I worked at The Greenhouse in Mayfair before setting up my own patisserie shop in South Kensington, Maitre Choux.
One of the reasons I wanted to launch a business was because I was a little tired of working in restaurants. The shifts are very long and hard, and you end up with no life. I also didn't want to be in the shadow of the chef anymore. In the UK pastry chefs are never brought to the fore, and they are never given the same credit as the head chef. It is very different in France where their achievements are celebrated equally.
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At the shop we focus solely on choux pastry, from eclairs to our round choux buns and chouquettes, which are freshly baked choux pastry casings topped with pearl sugar.
One of the things I like most about this type of pastry is that it's so interesting and versatile; you can play with the shapes and colours in many different ways. It's also been overlooked in recent years. For a long time everybody was obsessed with macarons, but it's time that choux was in the spotlight.
The UK doesn't have anywhere near as many pastry shops as France, but even in that country you can't get eclairs as good as ours. Because of the way we work, our eclairs are as fresh as they can possibly be; we have a team that starts at midnight to bake in time for the shop opening, and another team that comes in the afternoon. If you arrive at 8am when we open, some of the eclairs will have been finished just an hour or so before.
Our flavours are constantly changing. I get my inspiration from everything around me, from the internet and fashion through to people I meet working at the shop. I've also created eclairs based on places where I once worked, like an orange, saffron and pine nut version based on a tasting menu. At the moment my favourite combination is our Paris Brest, which has a hazelnut praline cream finished with a nougatine biscuit.
The response since opening our South Kensington shop has been greater than I ever expected. It's been crazy – we've been selling out every day. We now also supply our eclairs to Fortnum & Mason and the Chiltern Firehouse.
Our onsite kitchen is very small, limiting what we can produce. However we will soon be opening a new and far bigger kitchen. In the next few months we are also hoping to open more shops, in Notting Hill and Soho – we are confident that our success can continue as we expand.
JOAKIM PRAT is an award-winning pastry chef and co-owner of Maitre Choux in South Kensington, which brings a contemporary twist to this classic French pastry; maitrechoux.com
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