“2020 is an exciting year for us as we celebrate five years since opening the doors to L’École Valrhona Brooklyn,” says Emmanuelle Brun, chief operations officer of Valrhona North America. And to celebrate this anniversary, the center has prepared an exciting and ambitious calendar of 27 courses that will be taught by world renowned pastry chefs such as Claire Heitzler, Christopher Elbow, Karim Bourgi, Miro Uskokovic, Romain Grzelczyk, Pierre Hermé, and Adam Thomas, who will premiere as guest professors.

The big news is that for the first time, special sessions will be held in other locations outside of the school. Valrhona will organize a four-day class with chefs Pierre Hermé and Mickaël Marsollier in a state-of-the-art kitchen in Paris, where participants will learn to create small gâteaux, entremets, macarons and chocolates in the famous Hermé style. The trip will also include an exclusive tour of Hermé, of his lab in Rungis, an open discussion with the chef about sourcing, and a visit to his store in Champs Elysées with a product tasting and a pastry tour of the city of love. In addition, the firm announces two classes in New York City (Sugar Flowers & Valrhona Chocolate by Ron Ben-Israel & Guillaume Roesz, and One-shot machine bonbon production by Romain Grzelczyk), and four in California (Artistic chocolate showpiece by Stéphane Tréand, One Spoon by Philippe Givre and Derek Poirier, Rethinking ingredients by Sarah Tibbetts, and Pastry by Lincoln Carson) that “will allow us to share the L’École Valrhona experience with even more pastry chefs who want to develop their skills, learn new techniques, and discover emerging trends in the pastry world,” says Brun.

Other common names we find in the course calendar are Paul Saiphet, Christophe Domange, Greg Mindel, Nathaniel Reid, Patrice Demers, Oriol Balaguer, William Werner, and Antonio Bachour.