One kitchen, in Lyon
La Crème opened in 2016 in a former ironmonger’s on the rue Sainte-Hélène, with two people, one deck oven and a list of nine things. There are nine of us now and the list is about forty, which is roughly the right rate of growth for a kitchen that wants to know where everything came from.
What we make ourselves
All of it. The praline, the curd, the ice cream base, the puff pastry, the ganache. The only things that arrive finished are the chocolate, the butter and the flour, and we will tell you who makes each of those if you ask.
What we do not do
We do not hold stock overnight. We do not use frozen pastry. We do not ship outside the city, because a mille-feuille in a courier van is a bad advertisement and a good way to disappoint somebody two hundred kilometres away who has never met us.
The people
Nine, of whom five are pastry chefs and four are at the counter, and the counter is not the junior job. The person who sells you a fraisier in June has to be able to say why it is not on the list in November.