World-famous Paris bakery shares secrets in a new cookbook
PARIS — If there is such a thing as baking royalty, Apollonia Poilâne might be its queen.
The 35-year-old is a third-generation baker for the world famous Poilâne in Paris. It was founded in 1932 by Apollonia’s grandfather Pierre and has inspired chefs, musicians, poets, and artists worldwide for nearly 90 years: Surrealist icon Salvador Dalí commissioning a bedroom suite made completely out of bread for a 1971 exhibition. While it started in Paris, it has a location in London and a pop-up in New York City until Nov. 3.
Now, Apollonia Poilâne is opening the company’s oven doors wide with her first English-language cookbook, “Poilâne: The Secrets of the World-Famous Bread Bakery,” a weighty collection of nearly 100 recipes.
Speaking at the bakery’s hub under a replica of the Dalí bread chandelier, the soft-spoken CEO is reluctant to discuss her celebrity clientele, which includes Oprah “I Love Bread” Winfrey, Robert De Niro, and Natalie
Portman. But she quick to praise the women she calls her “guardian angels” — TV chef Ina Garten, cookbook author Dorie Greenspan, and the owner of Chez Panisse, Alice Waters, the latter of whom provides the book’s foreword.
“They’re ladies I look up to for what they have accomplished. They inspire me, and I refer to them as my guardian angels for their words of wisdom,” says Poilâne.
Those words of wisdom have proven very important to Poilâne, who took over the family business at 18 after her father Lionel and mother Irene were killed in a helicopter crash in October 2002, leaving her and her younger sister Athena orphaned.
“I was incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by a fantastic team, let alone the friends of my parents who helped me also go through those times,” says Poilâne.
The day after the tragedy, Apollonia headed straight to the bakery, says she sat at her father’s empty desk and resolved to run Poilâne.
“There was no question for me of whether I was taking over the family business or not.”