Nina Metayer, Cheffe Pâtissière

The first woman named World’s Best Pastry Chef remains values-driven, down-to-earth and affable.

by Philip Ruskin

Even after receiving the loftiest honor of her profession, cheffe pâtissière par excellence Nina Métayer remains strikingly grounded, warm and genuine. Having dazzled in the kitchens of her country’s most celebrated restaurants, the native of La Rochelle, France has built her own sweet path at the wildly popular patisseries she opened five years ago. Customers noticed. Critics noticed. In 2024, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants chose Métayer as the first woman to be named the World’s Best Pastry Chef. Her ability to command both the respect and affection of her team is arguably one of the key ingredients behind her fast-growing success. Her patience and determination were forged in the disappointments and rejections she overcame.

Early in her career, Métayer was told she was “too nice to work in a kitchen” and had no chance of successfully managing a staff. Her nay-sayers couldn’t have been more wrong. These days, businesses invite her not just to do baking demos, but also to give talks about management. “My goal is to make my team happy and proud, to help them understand that each of them brings something unique to the whole,” she explains. “Everyone must have this spirit of management, of sharing.” Métayer, extends the adage love what you do in order to, as she says, “love and respect those you work with.” 

Though she loves collaborating with people, being a CEO, and managing the company, surprisingly, Métayer didn’t always love pastry. “I wasn’t drawn to desserts. In fact, I didn’t particularly like them,” she admits.

So how did she become The World’s Best Pastry Chef?

“I wasn’t great at school,” she confesses. At 16, she enrolled in an international exchange program in Mexico City—a life-changing experience. Her hosts asked her to bake some bread, assuming that, being from France (home of the baguette) she must know how to bake. She didn’t. So, rather than panic, she took it as a challenge and set out to teach herself the art of baking.

When Métayer speaks about bread, her voice betrays a sense of wonder. “Bread is about savoir-faire,” she says. “There is no real recipe, just three simple ingredients—salt, water and flour. It’s the hands of the baker that bring it to life.”

Returning to France, she faced the stark realities of an industry historically dominated by men. “I was told by at least 20 bakers that I couldn’t be a boulanger because I was a woman,” she recalls. “They said, ‘How will you carry the enormous bags of flour?’”  Instead, she received dismissive offers as a cashier. Only Boulanger Denis Baron of Chez Paillat in La Rochelle took her on as an apprentice. In a poetically sweet turn of events, Métayer later purchased his bakery upon his retirement in 2024, the same year she was named World’s Best Pastry Chef.

Recognizing that pastry offered more opportunities for women than traditional bread baking, she pivoted to patisserie to get her foot in the door. First, she travelled to Australia, where she made pizza in Melbourne for a year and improved her knowledge of how to work with doughs. Back in France, she absorbed the passion of mentors such as Camille Lesecq at the famed Hôtel Le Meurice.

She later managed five outlets of Le Raphael Hotel and then handled desserts for Jean-Francois Piege’s Parisian establishment Le Grand Restaurant, which received two Michelin stars just six months after it opened. She developed desserts in international locations from China to Russia to Qatar.

Pastry had taken a teenager indifferent to sweets and turned her into a globally celebrated Cheffe Pâtissière. “This profession brings only positive values,” she says. “From savoir-faire to teamwork, to choosing the finest ingredients and transforming them into something beautiful. People don’t just buy a pastry; they buy into the skill, the tradition and the passion that created it.”

In 2020, she launched her own company alongside her husband, Mathieu Salome, who now serves as the company’s managing director. Her sister Paloma leads projects; her cousin Pandora helms the savory division (including the Nina Métayer Bread line); her mother, a former journalist, curates content; and her father built and manages the e-commerce platform, Délicatisserie.

For Métayer, the entire team, now 90 strong, feels like family. The company began baking her signature Galette des Rois, adorned with an exquisite tuile inspired by Notre Dame Cathedral’s stained-glass window, for special event company Trait’Tendance. Orders surged, leading her to establish operations in the event producer’s sprawling 17,000-square-foot headquarters.

The meteoric growth of her business continued despite launching in the midst of COVID. She published a recipe book La Delicate Patisserie in 2021. A year later, she opened her flagship patisserie, Dèlicatisserie, in the food court perched atop Paris’ iconic Printemps department store.

One of the rooms in her headquarters is devoted entirely to product innovation. A dedicated team, aided by three 3D printers, develops unique oven-safe molds.

Her signature confections include her renowned Craquante au Chocolat, a masterpiece of Valrhona Caraïbe 66% chocolate cake on a chocolate butter sablé, crowned with crispy feuilletine. She also features a stunningly symmetrical Saint-Honoré, a caramelized choux crowned with Chantilly, and an exquisite cheesecake featuring a crunchy Speculoos sablé, muscovado sugar, and Linnolat white almond vegetable chocolate. Her take on the classic flan, made with Tonka beans, is another standout. So are her lines of bonbons and boxed chocolates—essential in France, the world’s third-largest consumer of chocolate.

During Christmas season, she features both a cognac yule log and a praline and buckwheat yule log. You could place both confections near Métayer’s Fir Tree, a tree-shaped biscuit with pear compote, three types of chocolate and an infusion of organic fir shoots

Beyond her own patisserie, Métayer collaborates with luxury watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre, crafting bespoke pastries inspired by their legendary Reverso watch for their global pop-up cafes. Though she frequently travels for these projects, she dreams of returning to Mexico, a place that left an indelible mark on her. “The people, the joyous and upbeat spirit—I long to go back,” she says.

Along the way, she has piled up the awards: Le Chef’s Pâtissier of the Year in 2016; Gault & Millau’s Pastry Chef of the Year in 2017; GQ’s Pastry Chef of the Year in 2018; UIBC’s World Confectioner in 2023; and the ultimate recognition of World’s Best Pastry Chef in 2024.

Despite her whirlwind career, Métayer remains committed to causes close to her heart. She actively supports La Tablée des Chefs, an organization dedicated to culinary education for disadvantaged communities. Métayer is a tireless mentor or “godmother,” as she puts it, through Apprentis d’Auteuil, and relishes visiting schools and community associations to do demos, inspire young people and support educational programs.

With global demand surging—from Korea to Japan to the UAE—Métayer is carefully considering expansion. “For now, I’m more interested in pop-ups than permanent locations,” she says.

So, what does the World’s Best Pastry Chef indulge in when relaxing at a Parisian café? “A simple tarte Tatin with vanilla cream, or a really good ice cream,” she says. The answer is as elegant, refined and delightful as Nina Métayer herself. What else would you expect from the woman who is simply The World’s Best Pastry Chef?

Hanna Bruere and Elianna Carvalho contributed to this article.

(This article appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Pastry Arts Magazine)