“We started in September”: at the Palais des saveurs, Lionel Mandirac from Béziers prepared a thousand Yule logs for the holidays

Lionel Mandirac, pastry chef and chocolatier, has prepared around 1,000 Yule logs for the 2024 holidays. Mathilde Jullien – Midi Libre

In front of the confectionery workshop, where Lionel Mandirac's pastries come out. Mathilde Jullien – Midi Libre

Cette année, l’artisan pâtissier a préparé 1 000 bûches. Mathilde Jullien – Mathilde Jullien

Période incontournable pour les pâtissiers et chocolatiers, Noël nécessite une préparation bien en amont. Plongée dans les coulisses de la pâtisserie "Au Palais des saveurs", installée sur les allées Paul-Riquet, à Béziers.

Among the passion fruit creams, lemon meringue pies, raspberry lychee macaroons and chocolate desserts, which are enthroned in the window of the Palais des saveurs, at 31 allées Paul-Riquet, in Béziers, it is the chocolates and logs that take center stage during this festive period… Whether they are individual or for several people, their preparation requires the greatest care, well in advance, in order to be there on the Christmas and New Year's Eve tables.

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“Christmas is prepared at least 6 months in advance”

While he has experience, this period is nonetheless a challenge for Lionel Mandirac, who has been based in Béziers since 2017: “Christmas is prepared 6 months in advance, and even more. We have to order the raw materials in January for December, we have to calculate everything and it's a big organization. We don't know exactly what we're going to sell, we base ourselves on previous years. For the Yule logs, we start in the summer, doing tests to know what we're going to offer. And in September, we start the chocolate, which represents the biggest sale of the year”

This year, 1,000 Yule logs left the confectionery workshop: “They are prepared from mid-October to the beginning of December, and in the last 15 days before Christmas, we start decorating them little by little.” 900 have already gone for Christmas, and the rest will be gone by December 31st.

The challenge for the craftsman is to produce on time and satisfy customers, so that they have a good time. To do this, Lionel Mandirac can count on a team of two people in chocolate making, five people in pastry making, as well as a dishwasher. At the cash register, his wife serves customers and also takes orders by phone. “Customers can be a little stressed in order to be able to put all the dishes on the table, so that nothing is missing. So we try to de-stress. Baking is fun, we help the pressure go down.”

“Everything happens in the last few days before Christmas”

The majority of the preparations were sold between the 24th and the 25th. “Everything happens in the last few days before Christmas, so there is always apprehension, because we stock up without knowing the volume we are going to sell,” confides the artisan, who draws a positive assessment: “It has It was a great holiday season, it went well. Overall, no hitches this year”

It is essential that the machine does not seize up at this time.“There are always inconveniences even if we do our best to prevent them from happening. Sometimes we have problems with boxes that we don't receive, the cash register that bugs, we have to adapt.”

The Christmas rush is over, but there is no respite for the pastry chef. “We have a short window of time after Christmas to satisfy customers for the 31st. So we're focusing on that”, explains the craftsman who must also restart production, in order to put traditional pastries, flans, éclairs and other delicacies back on display, “before devoting himself to the galette”. A galette that is way too early in the windows for the craftsman's taste, which has the gift of annoying him: “We have customers who ask us for them, but we can't produce them, there are traditions to preserve. Soon, we'll start Easter in February, it's a shame. We no longer appreciate food if we don't respect the calendar”. At the Palais des Saveurs, the galette will wait!

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