This is How You Run a Macaron Empire

There are macarons under this freeway. It’s not under a freeway, really. Near a lot of them, though. In an unsexy but useful part of San Diego. I can smell the Dave & Busters from the parking lot, all that pent-up air hockey adrenaline.Here, in what looks from the outside like the set of Storage Wars, the former executive pastry chef of a two-star Michelin French restaurant is decanting some ice cream. There are bags upon bags upon bags of high quality flour we use as ad hoc furniture. Fresh macarons are coming out of the ovens. Just rows and rows and rows of them. They look like twee sliders made of sugar. Or that bubble gum from the ‘80s that was shaped like a miniature Big Mac.This is how you run a macaron empire. Very few places actually make them from scratch anymore. If you get a macaron at a place, more often than not they were delivered pre-made to that place’s back door. Because they are real pains in the asses to make. Quality control is all over the place. Any slight shift in the humidity and macarons get melodramatic and quit on you.But Le Parfait Paris does. Their shops—downtown, Del Mar Highlands, Coronado, Liberty Public Market, Anaheim, etc.—are lovely places with charm and sex appeal. They smartly took a commercial kitchen around some unmarketable freeways to get the real, tricky macaron work done, and then send them to the stores.

I’m trying to get a story out of Guillaume Ryon. He started this with his wife, Ludivine, years ago. I’m like, “This salted caramel macaron is altering me as a person in the best, fuzzy ways, but what sort of thing would you put in your autobiography? Where’s your struggle? I need stories, man.”He’s really perplexed, seemingly assuming his life is ho-hum. And then he drops this:“We were in France for Christmas when the civil war started. We were watching it on the TV and saw my dad’s office building on fire. He worked for Xerox, and his building was one of the first they set on fire.”The Ryon family split their time between France and the Ivory Coast. Ivory Coast has seen its share of unrest. “The second time the civil war started, we were on a beach with our family and friends and tanks started pulling up. We all had to get in our cars and got a tank escort to the border.”Oh. Dear god. Usual stuff. A bit of a journey from that to macarons.

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These are the stories of the people behind some of the best food in San Diego. I’m collecting them as we prepare for the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival. We’re going to bring all of them to the Del Mar Polo Fields at Surf Sports Park for a massive celebration of the city’s food and drink scene. You should come.I first learned about Le Parfait years ago from chef William Bradley, of three-star Michelin, Addison. I was loving his Parker House rolls and he said, “they’re from this new French bakery downtown you should check them out.”Now, a decade or so later, Guillaume and Ludivine have multiple locations and, while still busting their butts, are enjoying some pretty great success. I mean, there’s a pastry chef who headed up all those Michelin star sweets program—Malek Larbi, whose French accent is still perfect and delightful—sitting on a bag of flour, casually talking about how ingredients are everything.