It’s February and a lot of things are in the air, one of which just happens to be chocolate! Yes, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and for chocolate lovers the season of love is the best excuse to overindulge in chocolate.

It is said that Valentine’s Day and chocolate pretty much go hand-in-hand. After all, a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.

You have to admit, a box of chocolate always will make a wrong thing good, right? Well, if you are a lover of all things chocolate you’ll definitely agree.

When you bite into a piece of chocolate, have you ever stopped to think of all the work that goes into making the delightful treat, have you thought of enjoying it in any other way?

 If you’re a true chocolate lover, chances are you have an idea of what it takes to make the product that’s known to ‘melt hearts’. Also, you may know a few world-famous chocolatiers that continue to reinvent chocolate.

French-Swiss pastry chef and chocolatier Amaury Guichon is among the world’s most famous in the industry.

 The 31-year-old is known across the world for his exotic pastry designs and extraordinary chocolate sculptures.

Discovering his love for chocolate

In 2005 at the age of 14, Guichon began his culinary training at the École Hôtelière Savoie Leman in Thonon-les-Bains and participating in local competitions. He perfected his pastry-making skills working at the Wolfisberg bakery in Geneva.

Soon after he took up an apprenticeship at the Maison Lenôtre in Paris. In 2010, the young pastry chef was awarded the title of Best Apprentice in France, by the council of the MOF association.  

The sweetest career moves

After completing his training, Guichon was hired to run the Lenôtre boutique and school back in Cannes.

He later returned to Paris to work as an executive pastry chef at the Hugo & Victor patisserie and chocolate shop. At just 21, Guichon reached the level of executive chef within the company.

Guichon was a contestant on the France 2 reality cooking series, Who Will be the Next Great Pastry Chef? in 2013. The young chocolatier placed third in the competition.

He later moved to the United States in 2014 upon receiving an invitation from Jean-Philippe Maury to work at the Las Vegas branch of his Patisserie, with shops in the Aria Resort and Casino and Bellagio.

He worked as a private consultant and conducted masterclasses, leading Guichon to eventually co-found the Pastry Academy with Belgian chef Michel Ernots in the city of Las Vegas in 2019.  

In 2016, Guichon began to post his amazing desserts and chocolate creations on social media. Since then, he has gained over 19 million followers on Tik Tok and 10 million on Instagram.

With all his experience and expertise Guichon’s debuted as an author after he penned his dessert cooking book The Art of Flavor which was published in 2018.

The pastry chef became even more popular when hosted the 2021-2022 eight-episode reality series School of Chocolate on Netflix, a competition in which contestants construct chocolate sculptures with Guichon both guiding them and judging the final result.

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