{A cake created by Nathaniel Reid}
While more area chefs and restaurants are landing on the national culinary radar, one St. Louis chef has received aplomb on a global scale. Nathaniel Reid, executive pastry chef at The Ritz-Carlton, St. Louis, is among 38 pastry chefs from around the world included in The New Pâtissiers, the latest book by Australian-based writer Olivier Dupon (His previous books include The New Jewelers and The New Artisans.). The hardcover book, to be released Oct. 8, explores each chef’s style through biographies, photographs of them in action, and recipes of their mouthwatering cakes, tarts, chocolates and other sweet works of art.
Reid’s three recipes published in this cookbook require experience and fairly sophisticated kitchen equipment. But for those who appreciate masterful, modern pastries, this coffee-table book can serve as a window into current trends in pastry and sugar arts. For Reid, who joined the culinary team at the Clayton hotel this year, those trends include “more exploration of shapes and colors than in the past.” Named one of the top 10 pastry chefs in America by Dessert Professional magazine in 2011 and honored with the title Pastry Chef of the Year at the U.S. Pastry Competition in 2010, Reid explained his approach is to push boundaries, while still keeping his pastries approachable using timeless flavors like caramel, chocolate, red fruits, tropical fruits, hazelnuts and pistachios. Another trend he embraces is dialing down the sweetness of a dessert by using savory ingredients or offering cakes that are “more cake, less mousse. People are bored of mousse,” he said.
Reid’s desserts published in The New Pâtissiers are not on the menu at The Ritz-Carlton, but you can find The New Pâtissiers for sale in the hotel lobby. The book can also be ordered online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound for $60.
-Photo by Erik Kellar
This article appears in October 2013.