Japan and pâté-croute is definitely a beautiful love story. Japanese chef Taiki Mano, who runs the restaurant Les Saisons, located within the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, is the new world champion of pâté-croute.
It was his “pâté en croute with gold leaf, duck, foie gras, pork, sweetbreads and green pepper” that allowed him to win the 15th edition of the World Pâté-Croute Championship, organized in Lyon. (Rhône) this Monday, December 2 in the evening.
“He made a gold leaf pâté, which is a crazy technical feat. It was not simply placed on top: when he unmolded his pâté en croute, the gold leaf was encrusted” commented to AFP Audrey Merle, co-founder of the Confrérie du Pâté-Croûte, and specified that Taiko Mano won “hands down”.
The Japanese chef won the favor of the jury made up of starred chefs, best workers in France and personalities from gastronomy, chaired by the double-starred chef Stéphanie Le Quellec. The chef, who won the Best Newcomer prize last year, had “trained for a year, he made 350 pies to be ready for the final,” added the organizer. He succeeds Breton Frédéric Le Guen-Geoffroy, head of Club TP90 in Paris.
Japan, a country specializing in pâté en croute
It's a hit for Japan, since chef Seigo Ishimoto, of the Cœur restaurant in Kobe, won second place in this ranking thanks to his “autumn pâté en croute with the scent of yuzu”, composed chicken liver, cooked foie gras, trumpets-de-la-mort cognac and yuzu pepper. The first Frenchman ranks third, Damien Raymond, from caterer Daniel Gobet, in Segny (Ain).
Japan confirms that it is a country for which pâté en croute has no secrets, since Taiki Mano is the sixth Japanese chef to win the prestigious title in the last ten editions. “Japanese chefs are excellent technicians, they have a perfect mastery of the art of the knife, they have added their rigor, their precision, their attention to detail” to this dish which is now part of the “universal world heritage”, according to Audrey Blackbird.
Since the creation of the competition in 2009, French and Japanese chefs have shared the titles, with the exception of 2015 which saw Armenian chef Karen Torosyan, officiating in Belgium, win.
