Interview Jean-Paul Hévin

By Katia Kulawick-Assante

Guest of honour at the Salon du Chocolat et de la Pâtisserie, Jean-Paul Hévin is a key figure: Meilleur Ouvrier de France, a great defender of chocolate culture around the world for almost 40 years, he is also one of the pioneers with his shops that resemble veritable jewellers’ showcases.

You are the guest of honour for the 30th anniversary of the Salon du Chocolat in Paris. What will happen there?

I inaugurated the Salon du Chocolat with a stand in its first year, in 1995. I participated for many years, notably in the famous fashion show – with dresses and giant chocolate sculptures… It is an honour to be the guest of honour for this 30th anniversary! It is always a pleasure for me to give talks, master classes and exhibitions there. This year, I am presenting iconic pieces, including chocolate compressions and a photographic exhibition that recounts 20 years of work on specific themes – the common thread running through my creations each year. I also participate in the Salon du Chocolat in Japan.

Can you give us a preview of the theme that will be the common thread running through your creations in 2026?

‘Dreams and beans’, in connection with the centre of excellence for post-harvest processing of cocoa beans – both a cooperative and a cocoa fermentation centre – which I co-founded in Cameroon a little over two years ago. It is now up and running, and I am already receiving cocoa beans from this centre! My goal is to create a closer link between the producer and the consumer… at the origins of cocoa.

So it’s much more than just a plantation… How did this project come about?

I made a donation to a cooperative that built a fermentation centre in the middle of the cocoa fields. Today, this means that all the farmers in the region can bring their fresh cocoa beans to the centre, where people specialising in fermentation will put them in bins, check them, analyse them, ferment them and then dry them. Then they are sent to consumer countries. I am one of their customers, but they have many others!

Is production not reserved for Jean-Paul Hévin?

Oh no! It’s true that I added my name, Hévin-Nkolossang – after the village – and I protected it for security reasons, but production is open to everyone. What makes the project interesting is the quality of the cocoa, which is much higher because the centre is run by specially trained experts who follow a precise protocol. In terms of quality, we’ve gone from a scale of 2 to 9/10. This is my greatest source of pride, along with the establishment of grand cru chocolates and the development of craftsmanship in Cameroon, as I also organise competitions for the best pastry chefs and chocolatiers there.

Does that mean that fermentation is a process that chocolatiers don’t generally master?

No, it is the cooperative or the producer who normally manages this stage. There are other types of organisations, but in Africa it is true that there are many cooperatives. The Hévin-Nkolossang centre also allows us to pay more for the raw material, because I believe that part of the remuneration should go back to the farmer. The cooperative keeps part of the remuneration for training its teams. For my part, I am assured of having better cocoa and the certainty that the ethical rules of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and forest protection are respected. I would like to replicate this principle as much as possible.

There is a geopolitical aspect to your profession…

Oh yes, chocolate is a matter of geopolitics! There are indeed dangerous places where you cannot go. Peru, for example, has improved greatly because there were regions that were very difficult to access from a political point of view. Producers wanted to get rid of the mafia and organised themselves to improve the quality of cocoa and be able to make a living from it. The state has also invested heavily in improving the quality of the raw material.

There are so many different aspects to the chocolate-making process… right up to the Parisian showcase: what is luxury chocolate today?

I would rather talk about quality chocolate. If it is not well presented, it will not show the product to its best advantage. My company’s philosophy has always been quality and freshness, modifying and adding as little as possible. I founded Jean-Paul Hévin on these principles. Everything is organised according to these criteria. I have reasonable production quantities – that’s also part of quality and luxury – beautiful packaging, and customers with refined taste. And then there’s the very good cocoa, which, unsurprisingly, costs more!

You were the first to present a shop like a jewellery store. How did you come up with this idea?

In 1992, my shop on Rue Vavin took on the appearance of a jewellery store… with chocolate in the window. In Japan, I was offered a classic corner in a department store, but I wanted to have a cellar and a chocolate bar: I am the only retailer in the world to have these two gourmet elements in a department store, all in a closed space. It was a revolution in Japan, and that’s what made me famous in the Land of the Rising Sun. That was 20 years ago. For many years, there were queues – sometimes up to six hours long – in front of the shop all the time… Today, I have 13 shops in Japan, so it’s less of an issue, but on Valentine’s Day, the queues still get longer…

Japan changed your career path. What did this country bring you?

I lived there twice: the first time for a year and a half to open the Peltier shop, a patisserie chain that no longer exists. I learned Japanese, and when I moved to the island, it was a little easier to communicate with the teams and launch my own brand. In reality, I needed it to ensure that everything was done the way I wanted, and it helped me a lot. Japan changed my outlook on things: the culture of refinement, extreme attention to detail, the cult of simplicity…

How did you discover excellence?

Alongside Joël Robuchon. That’s where I discovered refinement, the quality of raw ingredients, the delicacy of transformation, which allowed me to absorb the concept of the profession through this prism.

Do you have to be obsessive to do this job?

I think so. Not in a negative way, but rather in a positive way, because when you’re obsessive, you’re passionate about your work.

What motivates you to continue every day?

I want people to understand my process, to understand that craftsmanship can have a certain level of quality and how to preserve it for the consumer.

This is not easy for the customer to achieve: obviously, there is the reputation of the brand, but people know very little when they come into the shop…

Yes, that’s one of my next big projects: communication. How to make hot chocolate, learning to taste, gourmet workshops, etc. These are all things I want to develop in order to communicate directly with customers. We need to better convey quality, we need to make people feel it, that’s my next challenge. There’s a lot of work to be done. And Paris is the perfect setting for that!

There has been significant inflation in the pastry industry recently…

That’s the least we can say! It’s even a price revolution. The price of cocoa has doubled in a few months and increased almost tenfold in a few years. Added to this is the inflation in the price of electricity, plus other raw materials. Vanilla has fallen slightly, but it was €900 per kilo, compared to €60 a few years ago. Today, it’s €150-180 per kilo. Why? Because vanilla-producing countries had their entire stock stolen, which destabilised the entire industry. As a result, there are all kinds of vanilla on the market, not necessarily traceable, poorly fermented and with an unbalanced taste. Not to mention pistachios, which, along with the famous Dubai chocolate, are exhausting the market…

What should you try at Jean-Paul Hévin?

The Happy, the house birthday cake, all chocolate! The chocolate bars, of course, the grands crus, the chocolate macarons, the travel cakes and the chocolate bonbons – pralines or grands crus ganache. And the powdered chocolate for hot chocolate! I’ve actually written a book on this subject, with around fifty recipes. I’ve made hot chocolate with all kinds of flavours in my career, including oyster, which was offered for tasting at trade fairs. It gives you energy!

A real champion’s breakfast…

(laughs) Be careful not to mix them, but taste the oyster cream and hot chocolate one after the other! Among my most surprising recipes is also the chocolate aperitif with cheese, created in the 2000s: 4 Charolais chocolates (goat’s cheese, hazelnut powder, Sichuan pepper), Pont l’Evêque (thyme, hazelnut), Epoisse (cumin, Sichuan pepper) and Roquefort (pecan nuts, Madagascar pepper). There are a few exceptions that don’t contain chocolate: orange tart, caramelised pear tart and Mazaltov (a cheesecake), recipes that I’ve been making forever, since before I became a 100% chocolatier.

Salon du Chocolat et de la pâtisserie

From 29 October to 2 November 2025 at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles