Since June, our bird of the lake welcomes the good news... Ô Bon Pain is from now on a bakery 100% made in Le Pélican! Fresh breads and brioches are made at the hotel and for the pastry, it is the Impérial Palace that delivers at a moment's notice 😉 To know all the secrets of this know-how, read on...
A purely Annécian know-how
Every morning at dawn, Vincent, head baker, and his faithful sidekick Laurianne get up and meet Ô Bon Pain in the heart of Le Pélican hotel. It is then time to start the machine... With a lot of elbow grease and passion, our team of shockers puts in the oven the preparations made beforehand in order to satisfy the early risers and to put bread in their mouths. At the same time, they start the first kneading machines, prepare the bread balls served in the restaurant as well as the brioches and special breads, covered with various seeds. Then it's time to fill fresh sandwiches, croque-monsieur with homemade béchamel sauce, whip up custard and bake the much-loved chouquettes.
Meanwhile, at the Impérial Palace, Quentin prepares the pastries which are then delivered to our favourite bird. The pastry chef of the gastronomic restaurant La Voile makes these dishes with love and precision, so that only the best is served in the PVG establishments. Timothé and Aurélien start work at 5.30 am in the Impérial's lab to ensure a 7.30 am delivery to Ô Bon Pain. The trio speeds up and makes fruit mousses, rolls out the pie shells with the help of the rolling mill, gently pockets the chocolate cakes and sprinkles icing sugar on the classic Paris-Brest cakes. A real effervescence reigns in these kitchens where 12 pairs of hands work together to ensure that everything from breakfast at the Impérial Palace to the desserts at La Voile and La Brasserie and, for the past three months, the bakery at the Le Pélican hotel is in top shape.
Local and fresh products
Ô Bon Pain is supplied locally with flour from Métral, in Saint-Pierre-en-Faucigny. This milling company sources its wheat from the Rhône-Alpes region and mainly from Savoie. The real secret of good home-made bread is the leaven. Vincent and Laurianne hardly use any yeast and prefer sourdough and its slow fermentation for its gustative and conservation qualities. This preparation made in Le Pélican brings different notes to the bread and strongly raises the taste, while being soft for our bellies. Indeed, the leaven has a dissolving action on the glutens, making the bread much more digestible and light. Ô Bon Pain, the baguette and the pavé de campagne will thus tend to last longer and to be less damaged, always with a view to smart consumption 😉
On the other side of the Pâquier, it's the same thing! We favour local producers with Fraise & Basilic, a greengrocer from Sevrier who provides delicious seasonal fruits to brighten up fruit salads, window displays with beautiful colours and delight our taste buds. The menu is also elaborated by Quentin in order to respect the seasonality of the products to guarantee their taste and quality. The chocolate comes from Valrhona, as does the vanilla, chosen from the pods and organically grown. The walnuts are from Grenoble and everything is home-made for our locavores in Annecy, those who come just for a breeze or to put their suitcase down at the hotel Le Pélican.
Who are the little hands of Ô Bon Pain?
Vincent, head baker at Ô Bon Pain, has 25 years of experience in the business. He went abroad very early on, and for 15 years he shared his know-how with the Irish. Over there, he was able to export the French bread culture but also discovered local specialities. Professional bakery, artisanal bakery and milling, our chef has explored all aspects of baking. For him, it is important to know his products in order to correct and improve himself by trying different recipes. That's why he enjoyed working in the laboratory and testing the quality of the flour. Recently, Vincent accepted a new opportunity with the hotel business... And Le Pélican is delighted!
Laurianne has a very varied background, since she started in art school and then in communication. In professional reconversion, she asks herself the famous question... "And now, what do we do?" Always sensitive to cooking and having grown up in a family for whom eating well was essential, Laurianne turned to baking. For her, bread is the first element of humanity, whatever its form, it is found everywhere and has great importance in her eyes. After training in Paris, travelling the roads of France and Navarre, but also those of Spain, Turkey or Greece, Laurianne settled in Annecy and her path met that of Le Pélican, but also of Vincent, a head baker whom she admires and with whom she really enjoys working.
Quentin, pastry chef at La Voile, is used to working in fine establishments. With his wife, a former chef de salle, they have travelled all over France and the world to use their skills in starred restaurants. From Saint-Barthélémy to Switzerland, we are definitely all about globetrotters at the PVG Group 😉 After working alongside Adrien Tupin-Bron, executive chef at La Voile, Quentin was entrusted with the entire pastry at the Impérial Palace and now at the Le Pélican hotel. A great challenge that he takes up every day with all his team of pastry chefs!
Now that you know everything about the products and the beautiful people behind Ô Bon Pain, all you have to do is taste!
Ô Bon Pain, open every day from 6.30 am to 8 pm