Azuhiro Nakayama, Junji Tokunaga and Shinichi Sugita are the three pastry chefs who will represent Japan at the next World Cup of Pastry, which will take place in Lyon in 2015. The three contestants were selected after an excellent elimination competition in sugar, chocolate and ice, under the watchful gaze of the legendary French MOF Gabriel Paillasson.

One only has to observe the artistic and technical level of some of the creations that were not selected to see that Japan is full of brilliant professional pastry chefs. Clearly, they will be one of the favourites in the grand final of this competition, organised by the chocolate brand, Valrhona.

To be more precise, Azuhiro Nakayama, who works in the pâtisserie, ‘Occitanial’, owned by MOF Stéphane Tréand, will create the sugar-based artistic piece and the chocolate cake. The chocolate specialist and the author of the dessert will be Junji Tokunaga, who works at the Ritz Carlton in Tokyo. Finally, the ice piece and the ice-cream cake will be the responsibility of Shinichi Sugita, professional pastry chef at the Grand Hyatt in Tokyo.