Ghislain GAILLE
Pastry chef, Vakko PâtisseriesGhislain is the descendant of four generations of pastry makers: his great grandfather opened his pastry shop in 1920 in Vichy, his grandparents and parents continued the tradition in Riom and Châtel-Guyon.
Ghislain trained with Michel Belin in Albi under the direction of his chef Philippe Escribe and then went to Avignon to work with Philippe Parc (MOF), then with Goumard Prunier, a two-star restaurant in Paris where patrons included celebrities such as Gérard Depardieu, Jean-Paul Belmondo and his boss, Jérôme Seydoux.
He left France when he was 22 and worked in luxury hotels throughout the world – Hilton, Hyatt, Four Seasons – in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Greece during the Olympic Games and the Bahamas. He finally settled in Istanbul in 2006 at the Four Seasons Sultanahmet and, in 2008, he was asked to direct the sweets brigade of the Four Seasons Bosphorus when it opened, where he worked for eight years. He was then recruited by Vakko, working with Philippe Chatelain (MOF) with whom he opened several pastry shops in what he calls “a return to my first love”. Today, the 10 boutiques of this brand, which propose purely French pastry, are extremely successful. Ghislain defends this approach, considering that the knowhow and techniques of French pastry remain the quality benchmark of the trade.
This philosophy, a bit chauvinistic, doesn’t stand in the way of his being a member of the Turkish committee of the Coupe du Monde de Pâtisserie, which includes Feray Aydoğdu (Tonka Pâtisserie and Les vergers Boiron consultant), Mehmet Yücel (Giano chocolates), Marc Pauquet (Callebaut chocolates), Tim Briggs (Baylan), Richard Vacher (Cordon Bleu Istanbul chef and trainer), with the support of their godfather, Philippe Chatelain.