Claire Clark: Queen of tarts

Pastry chef Claire Clark (L) will be demonstrating a mint delice (R) at the Hospitality NZ show next week. Photos / Supplied

Widely recognised as one of the world's foremost pastry chefs, UK-based Claire Clark has an unparalleled pedigree. From 2005 until April this year she was the head pastry chef at the Michelin-starred Napa Valley restaurant The French Laundry where the prix fixe for a nine-course tasting menu is US$240 ($356). In 2005 she was named Best Pastry Chef by Restaurant Magazine and in 2007 her cookbook Indulge won Best Dessert Book at the World Gourmand Awards.

Clark, who was pastry consultant at the House of Commons and a senior lecturer at London's Le Cordon Bleu, was also the only female recipient of the Meilleur Ouvrier de la Grande Bretagne (Best Crafts Worker of Britain) - the highest award presented for professional excellence. So it's quite a coup that Hospitality NZ has managed to lure her to Auckland to be the headline act at its trade show later this month.

In New Zealand, Clark will be demonstrating mint delice, a dish she describes as "one of the most fun things I created at The French Laundry. It looks very clean and sharp but it's actually very technical and it eats well."

A mint delice consists of two different types of chocolate ganache layered on top of a chocolate feuilletine (a crushed sugared wafer biscuit) and mint chocolate chip parfait all sitting inside a chocolate hoop.

"There's no other flavour apart from the mint and the chocolate so there's nothing to confuse - nothing unbalanced or unstructured," she says.

The 45-year-old may be the undisputed Queen of Tarts but her path to the top got off to a decidedly shaky start.

Whipping up puddings wasn't initially Clark's dream job. Her early hopes of becoming a classical musician were dashed when she realised her flute playing wasn't up to standard.

The food industry was a second career choice and one that she did not instantly take to as a "timid and small" 17-year-old.

She quickly discovered the main kitchen was "a rough place for a girl, a really rough place. I was always a bit feeble. I kept fainting and passing out. I didn't really like the hot kitchen." Hence her move to the more civilised and measured environment of the pastry kitchen where she started to enjoy her work and visibly blossomed.

Clark completed a two-year pastry course at London's Thames Valley University and honed her skills at a series of upmarket London establishments including The Ritz, Claridge's and Terence Conran's Bluebird restaurant.

She worked only briefly with the volatile Gordon Ramsay; she didn't like "the attitude" of his kitchen.

Preparation is a large part of a pastry chef's role; up to 20 different bases taking hours to make may need to be created.

"You might have to make pastry, sponge, ice cream, cookie crumb, tuile biscuits and a filling of some sort just to make one dessert," says Clark.

"Then you need to start rolling, cutting, baking and assembling."

Her core philosophy is that a dessert should be well balanced, with a simplicity that belies the high degree of skill demanded to create it.

"I am very much about the quality of ingredients and technique rather than making something look fantastic but it tasting of nothing but sugar."

Clark's personal life suffered and she made a lot of sacrifices in her single-minded quest to be the best pastry chef.

With a working day that routinely started at 5am and finished at midnight for many years, she had a non-existent social life and describes herself as "a bad friend".

Her 13-year marriage was also a casualty.

"In the end, my career was just my life. I eat, sleep, breathe it - 24 hours a day." And having children was out of the question.

"I don't know when I would have had time to have a baby."

But in pursuing a job she "absolutely loves - even on a bad day" she has achieved international acclaim and a great sense of satisfaction.

"For me the ultimate happiness is when someone turns around to you and says: 'Oh my God, that was the most amazing dessert'."

Constantly tasting decadent desserts is an occupational hazard for a pastry chef so it's fortunate this self-confessed "complete chocoholic" has a sweet tooth.

And it's hardly surprising that meals at her Buckinghamshire home, in the village of Lee Common, are virtually spartan: a typical dinner may consist simply of a tin of soup, cheese, crackers and yoghurt.

Clark returned to the UK from California earlier this year to look for a site in which to establish her own business.

All she is prepared to say at the moment is that her venture will be "an exciting new dessert concept".

And does she have any tips for budding pastry cooks?

"Follow the recipe. Pastry's a science. In pastry everything happens for a reason. Do what the recipe says because that's when it works."

*****

Hospitality NZ runs from 23-25 August at the ASB Showgrounds. It is aimed at all those who work in hospitality and includes a range of events such as the Culinary Fare competition - with more than 1000 entries - and demonstrations from the restaurant, cafe, wine, coffee and beverage industries, while Clarke and Lawrence Nadeau, who is Maitre'd at The French Laundry, are the headline acts in the Masterclass series. (See Claire on Sunday 23, 11am-1pm, or Monday 24, 2.30pm-4.30pm.) There are limited tickets ($80) available to the public for these classes. To purchase ph (09) 638 8403.