Local chef wins national Pastry Chef of the Year
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It may be the signature macaroons at Downtown’s Duquesne Club that often get the spotlight, but it is executive pastry chef William Racinwho brought home the prize.
The 31-year-old was named Pastry Chef of the Year by the American Culinary Federation at its annual convention held in New Orleans in mid-July. With 13 years of professional cooking under his belt, and nine of his 10 years at the private Duquesne Club as executive pastry chef, Mr. Racin’s first national competition — in which he created three signature desserts — was a success he hoped for but humbly didn’t expect.
“It was surreal,” he said. “It’s something I never thought was possible, I just assumed I would just show up, I would present everything, I would be the best representation of myself, but I never anticipated to win.”
The Ohio native is a certified executive pastry chef who attended the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley, Calif. He has worked at Nashville’s boutique Hermitage Hotel and Provence Breads & Cafe and the Country Inn at Walden in Washington County.
“It was pastry, forever,” he said. “I feel like I was born in the kitchen because it’s the only thing I ever wanted to do.”
He said the win made the 16hour drive back to Pittsburgh a bit easier, complete with a trip to Waffle House, before returning home to his two basset hounds — one of which he thanked at the awards ceremony, in addition to his mother, wife and apprentice at the event: Kodi Mikiewicz, 21, a line cook at the Duquesne Club.
“Food Network would have hated it, because we just did exactly what we practiced and we were done,” he said with a laugh.
This year, the ACF’s convention drew more than 1,500 people. Mr. Racin and three regional finalists had 2½ hours to create three desserts that played into this year’s theme: Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Representing the Northeast, he prepared a buttermilk plum crescent with cornmeal cake, panna cotta and lemon sherbet, topped with a plum gelee; pistachio cherry spritz cookies; and a 2-foot-high chocolate pastillage showpiece.
“It was just so methodical,” he said, “I never use the word perfect, but it was as close to perfect as I could have imagined the whole competition going.”
There was a sweet bit of Pittsburgh at the event: Cemoi, the French chocolate company that sponsored the event, distributes to the United States from Chris Candies in Troy Hill — which Mr. Racin found out only recently but promptly took a full factory tour.
Mr. Racin will continue to lead an eight-person pastry team at the members-only club while he prepares for the Chaine des Rotisseurs