Joakim Prat is head pastry chef at Maître Choux in London.

Working in the kitchen from as young as 14, Joakim would later go on to become one of the youngest executive pastry chefs in the world to work in a 3 Michelin star kitchen when he was at Can Fabes restaurant, Barcelona at the age of 25. After roles at l’Atelier and the Greenhouse, Joakim found his own niche when he decided to open the world’s first and only choux pastry specialist patisserie in London. Specialising in eclairs, choux and chouquettes, both Joakim and Maître Choux have become renowned for their unique take on the classic French patisserie.

The Staff Canteen caught up with Joakim to find out more about his career, his mum being a really bad cook and why he finds inspiration everywhere, even when he’s at the zoo.

Can you tell us a little about your career and how you got into the industry.

I started working in the kitchen when I was 14 years old. Straight away, I loved the busy environment, the orderly chaos, and the focus it takes to consistently be at your best. Both individually and as a team. Before l’Atelier I was one of the youngest Executive pastry chefs in the world in a 3 Michelin star restaurant at the age of 25. The restaurant was called Can Fabes and was the 3 Michelin star brainchild of great Spanish chef, the late Santi Santamaria.

This really shaped me and taught me how to manage people on top of simply creating desserts. This was quite pivotal to me as this allowed me to really take my career to another level. Following this, I came to work for Mr Robuchon in London at l’Atelier where I was in charge of all the desserts for the restaurant and the catering.

Have you always worked in pastry or have you tried other areas of the kitchen as well?

My mother was a really bad cook, so I had to learn how to cook at home if I wanted to eat well! Therefore I started to cook really young, and since then I have never looked back. I trained as a chef when I was 15, then switched to pastry when I was 16.

Pastry isn’t always a chef’s first choice when it comes to the kitchen, why do you think that is?

Chefs have been in the spotlight because the restaurant is under their management, therefore people don’t necessary know much about what it takes to be a pastry chef. Pastry is more about precision and technical skills and many chefs discover a passion for pastry while they are working at other stations in the kitchen.

Do you think shows like Bake off and Crème de la Crème are changing people’s perception of pastry?

Definitely! While these shows do not really show how demanding and precise pastry and baking are, they do a good job at introducing dessert creation to the general public, and more often than not, it can go wrong if you miss one single step of the recipe.

How did you come up with the idea for Maitre Choux?

Eclairs are the most sold pastry product in French patisseries and I felt like they ought to receive more exposure in the UK. The entire population of pastry-addicts is in France so they can’t all be wrong in their pastry of choice! While the quality of food in London has skyrocketed to the top of the world’s rankings over the past decade, there has not been an equivalent rise in the quality of desserts that Londoners can indulge in.

The choices that Londoners face when it comes to buying everyday desserts are still quite limited to what I would call comfort food bakery products such as brownies, banana bread, cupcakes, sponge cakes, etc. Maitre Choux is here to change this and this is why I picked London instead of Paris which already has a strong dessert offering. My goal is to bring the