Stéphane Louvard: The Baker who Invented the Crookie

Parisian boulangeries can surprise visitors in more ways than one. Most, for example, are devoid of on-site seating, seeing as locals typically enjoy their pastries at home. Tourists, then, are usually relegated to precariously devouring their Saint-Honorés on a street corner – or illicitly digging in on a neighboring café terrace (and succumbing to the scolding sure to follow). And while it’s pleasant to imagine that all French pâtisseries are bastions of impeccable quality, behind many an intricate 19th-century façade lies an ugly secret: Estimates show that only about 50% of bakers are actually making all of their specialties in-house and on-site. 

At his eponymous bakery, Stéphane Louvard breaks with both of these idées reçues. A beautiful café extends past the bakery window, the perfect place to dig into not just Paris’ best éclairs but the original crookie, an invention that justifiably put Louvard on the map. But don’t let that innovation fool you: Unlike many of his colleagues, Louvard isn’t stoking the fires of the Insta algorithm. True passion motivates this baker anchored in tradition to add a discerning pinch of innovation to his delicious creations. 

A Traditional Baker Through and Through 

Louvard is lankier than he should be, seeing as he devours one of his own chaussons aux pommes each morning. It’s unsurprising, given how delicious they are: A not-too-sweet applesauce generously fills the buttery puff pastry, which he shapes into an atypical square and tops with a touch of raw cane sugar before baking until it’s far more burnished and caramelized than most. Warm out of the oven, it’s easy to devour in just a few bites, which he does with as much relish as if this were his very first taste.  

Such slight tweaks to the classics have become the baker’s calling card, in his three decades in the industry. Unlike many of his younger colleagues, who’ve embraced pastry after years in marketing or business, 52-year-old Louvard came up the old-school way. He got his CAP pâtissier as a teenager before earning his stripes with long hours doing grueling work under demanding bosses. But he credits the experience with his expertise today.  

“At the time, you had to master everything,” he recalls. “When you said ‘I’m a pastry chef,’ it meant you knew how to do everything.” 

And Louvard does indeed do everything. While current trends in Parisian pastry have led many to specialize in mastery of a single pastry form, from éclair specialist l’Eclair de Génie to cream puff purveyor Odette, Louvard offers a wide array of classic cakes, including some former stalwarts that have fallen from fashion. Green-iced salambos are thin on the ground in most Parisian patisseries, but for Louvard, this stubby relative of the éclair filled with kirsch-scented crème pât is “unmissable.” 

“Ask her!” he says, gesturing to a member of his staff. “Ask her, ‘When Mr. Louvard comes to eat something, what does he eat?’” Systematically, it’s a Salambo. 

These days, Louvard has a staff of young bakers helping him prepare all manner of cakes, tarts, and pastries, leaving him free to conquer the most difficult and most essential of tasks: tourage. Preparing the yeasted, laminated dough at the heart of croissants, pains au chocolat, and pains aux raisins has long been the task of the patron, he says, and he hews to tradition. Unlike many other bakers in Paris, Louvard eschews the crescent-shaped, margarine-based croissant ordinaire entirely for one simple reason: “I don’t like them,” he says. “When I don’t like something, I have a hard time making it.” 

His pure butter croissants are a labor of love crafted over three days, including resting the dough for 48 hours before it’s formed and baked. This contributes to an inimitable depth of flavor.  

“It’s impossible for me to go a day without eating two or three,” he says with a cheeky grin.

An Innovative, Creative Mastermind 

Despite his adherence to tradition, Louvard is no stranger to innovation – provided it improves upon the classic. His chocolate éclairs, for example, begin with choux pastry infused with cocoa. He fills each generously with classic crème pâtissière, an anomaly on the contemporary pastry scene, where the rich, eggy custard thickened with cornstarch has mainly been sidelined in favor of crémeux, a lighter cream made from ganache and crème anglaise. If modern pâtissiers favor it, Louvard says, it’s because it’s easier to freeze, but if you ask him, a crémeux-filled éclair “isn’t an éclair.” 

“When you use crémeux, there’s no chew,” he says. “It’s too soft.” 

To add depth of flavor to his crème pât, he sources his chocolate from Xoco, the world’s first producer to develop and grow its own single-variety cacao. Each batch is only lightly roasted, to bring out the best in its complex, fruity flavors. Louvard’s favorite is their Mayan Red, with a lovely berry note. “It’s powerful without being bitter,” he says. “Even at 80 percent, there’s no bitterness. And that’s magic.” 

To top each éclair, Louvard veers out of traditional fondant territory in favor of a barely sweetened Mayan Red glaze. Fruity Mayan Red cocoa nibs are the perfect finishing touch. “You could eat them by the spoonful,” he says, and he does. 

Once he’d mastered the chocolate éclair, Louvard decided to apply a similar mindset to a pastry he’s never been able to stand. “I’ve been a pastry chef for 30 years, and I’ve always hated coffee éclairs,” he says, citing the insipid coffee extract most people use as the chief reason why. 

“I remember colleagues who used to work in old, country bakeries,” he says, “and they would keep all their burned caramel to make their coffee extract. It’s true! The way you made your own coffee extract was a super, super, super caramelized coffee, more than burned. And then you deglaze it with coffee.” 

He was sure he could do better. 

He started with the organic Malongo coffee he serves in the on-site café, which he infuses overnight. The next day, he blends it for 10 to 15 minutes, until the grounds completely dissolve in the water. “You end up with this sort of coffee paste,” he says, “and I use that to deglaze my caramel.” 

The resulting coffee extract is dotted with small specks, much like vanilla bean paste. He uses it to flavor not just the crème pât but the fondant topping and the choux pastry itself. “Now, I’ll eat a coffee éclair,” he says. “Because it tastes like coffee.” 

This traditionalist sometimes goes even further in his innovations. It was in October 2022 that he decided to mash up two of his best sellers – his butter croissant and his chocolate chip cookie – to create the city’s first crookie, an invention that has since been replicated all over the capital. 

“I wanted to have fun,” he says, and from the looks of it, he does. 

The Times Are Changing 

Louvard is nothing if not creative, but he maintains that the governing principle behind his approach is above all a pursuit of simplicity. 

“I like good, simple products – the way the used to be made,” he says. He’s skeptical of over-the-top innovations like the cromboloni and trend-driven mania around ingredients like pistachios, which, he says, are expensive and often bland to boot. 

“I love pistachio, but unfortunately, pistachio pastes aren’t just pistachio,” he says. “If you don’t use added flavors, there’s no flavor.” 

Complicating things even further are the effects of climate change on the availability of certain staples. 

“I remember when I was an apprentice, and we would make fruit tarts in the spring,” he says. “We’d make strawberry charlottes, and they were gorgeous. Today, even the gariguettes aren’t good. With every year that goes by, I find them less good.” 

This lack of quality ingredients, compounded with the contemporary departure from tradition in favor of both novelty and over-simplicity, has left him fatigued and frustrated. 

“I’m fed up,” he says. “I’m saturated.” And then, he smiles. “But I like it. So for a week, I’ll be fed up… and then when you’ve got the young folks with you, the ones who are motivated, you go… ‘All right, let’s go. Let’s make something.’” 

And he does.