MAISON LA VARENNE
Our recipes are elaborated from the original creations of François Pierre de la Varenne, well known cook of Louis XIV.
Inventor of flavors, La Varenne bequeathed gourmet fantasies such as mille-feuilles, meringue, chestnuts and many other treasures …
Today, rich in this heritage, our Pastry Chef, from the most famous houses contemporary pastry, offers you these irresistible sweets of a «Versailles to eat», combining authenticity and know-how.
OUR LEGACY
A legacy of innovation
The seventeenth century, the one of the sun king, has known huge changes in the history of taste. French Gastronomy and its rules, which must be the good taste, the one of food.
François Pierre de La Varenne, well known cook of one of the most famous table of his time, is the first to encourage this «true taste cuisine », The cook François (1651).
This is the first cookbook where a modern reader can find recognizable recipes such as eggs with snow, ”millefeuilles”, fashionable beef, « la bisque »… It’s the first time that professional expressions appear such as “fashionable”, “blue” or “natural”.
The bouquet garni, funds of cooking, the reductions, the use of the white of egg for the clarifications, the links with the base of mushrooms, truffles and almonds … La Varenne innovated, invented and created a cuisine always more greedy. A recipe “with a good fresh butter, a little vinegar, salt and nutmeg and an egg yolk for the sauce” prefigures the Netherlands sauce, another sauce “Bechameil”.
He created Dussels sauce (minced mushrooms, herbs and shallots) and above all, replace the sauces bread with roux and lard with butter, and then of course, the famous sauce La Varenne, a mayonnaise with duxelles, parsley and chervil.
The recipe for the first « meringue » is given in his “Pâtissier François” (1653) and the iced chestnuts one, in his « Perfect confiturier » (1664). He introduced the work in the preparation of biscuits and cakes, bringing them mellow and flavor.
His recipes, consulted during centuries, are still used today.
A gourmet legacy
La Varenne learned from the teachings of Italian masters (Martino / Platinum, Scappi and Messisbugo) and borrows various specialties. He has an atypical course, living a modest life until he enters around 1640 as a kitchen hand in the service of the Marquis of Uxelles, Marshal of France. He then serves Louvois and finally Louis XIV.
The court loves his creations and everyone wants his services. Biscuits, macaroons, sweets and other sweets are the delicacies of Versailles until Marie-Antoinette and her little love puffs with rose cream.
OUR EXPERTISE
La Varenne experience
What were the sweet temptations of Louis XIV?
What delicious marvels were melted Marie Antoinette?
These are the initial questions and curiosities of La Varenne’s House. To this, add our furious desire to offer healthy products, finely elaborated and selected to offer only authentic.
After long and painstaking research at the heart of our culinary heritage, we have designed a range of treats that make Maison La Varenne’s THE specialist of high-end confectionery and biscuits.
Laboratory of manufacture, but also discoverer of treasures and talents, Maison La Varenne offers a unique place for the best of French delicacy.
For our greatest pleasure, our pastry chef revisits every day in his workshop, the great classics of gluttony and takes them to new worlds of taste.
Nicolas Koerber
A style and a very greedy course
- Creative director at the Maître chocolatier Jean-Paul Hévin, Paris
- Team leader at Pierre Hermé, pope of the macaroon, Paris
- Creative director for the culinary magazine “Thuries”
- Pastry chef at the starred restaurant “Stucki”, Bruderholz
- Pastry chef with the Prime Minister at Hotel Matignon, Paris
Biscuits, chocolate candies, original recipes, let yourself be seduced by his creations, produced in limited series or offer yourself a totally unique creation, closer to your desires. Nicolas, heir of the purest French tradition, offers us daring creations and always greedy.
Our Quality Charter
We commit ourselves daily
- Providing irreproachable and consistent quality through finely selected ingredients. Nothing is rare or precious to enrich our creations.
- Guarantee the flavor of ‘real’. Cocoa, dried and fresh fruits, dairy products, but also flour and sugar benefit from an uncompromising selection.
- Working with producers, craftsmen and suppliers committed to our side, in the rigor, the requirement and the refined search for the taste preservation.
So our raw materials are always carefully selected because the secret is in the quality of the ingredients.
Our fruits are selected from the heart of the Provençal Orchard revealing all their natural flavor. Candied fruits are also the focus of our attention, the homemade process guarantees a slowly candied fruit, because at La Varenne, we know how to take the time! And of course without dye, or conservative. Our sweets are coated with real arabic gum. This allows to obtain both the crunchy and the melting, while preserving the flavor and the pulp of the fruit. The same rules, symbols of quality and exception, are brought to our nougats, our caramels and all our sweets.
Our know-how is a legacy, our seriousness a promise of excellence.
