THE ART OF THE PASTRY PROFESSIONAL - 2026

andy Lee
Dec 27, 2025
2 min read

At the age of 13, I realized I wanted to become a chef. I was studying home economics at school, which included both baking and cooking. For my final project, I had to make "something," so I baked my first cake for my mother’s birthday. Thirty years later, unlike becoming a sommelier, I have yet to master the art of pastry. (P.S. My mother appreciated the effort! Luckily, there was a cake shop down the street!)

The role of Executive Pastry Chef, a position typically found in larger hotel kitchens or luxury restaurants across North America, requires specific skill sets that most chefs aspire to perfect. To master the pastry profession, you need dedication, passion, persistence, patience, and artistic imagination. Pastry chefs must also be incredibly organized, as they work with several ingredients that must be combined in a precise order to achieve the desired results.

It’s a career that’s both fascinating and often complex. Most pastry chefs start their day at 4 a.m. and often work 50 hours or more a week. Yet, with the right combination of traits, a trained pastry chef can create everything from simple breads and birthday cakes to intricate boxes made entirely of chocolate. It still boggles my mind what a pastry chef can create from something as simple as sugar—it’s almost like magic!

Now, with cutting-edge techniques like molecular gastronomy, new and exciting opportunities are opening up for pastry chefs to revolutionize food preparation. This has raised awareness of the pastry profession as a whole, attracting more people to the field. In my opinion, this is fantastic, as the hospitality industry, in general, deserves greater recognition as a legitimate career path.