Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

CHOCOHOLICS BEWARE: Sweet Deal

After serving as executive pastry chef at the Bellagio since 1998, Jean-Philippe Maury gets his own pastry shop

Mary Ann Dekastillo grabs a pastry at Jean Philippe Patisserie in the Bellagio. Photo by John Locher. Jean-Philippe Maury stands by his elaborate chocolate fountain at Jean Philippe Patisserie in the Bellagio. The 27-foot-tall fountain features three types of chocolate. Photo by John Locher.

The tourists who'd just recorded the wonders of the Bellagio Conservatory hadn't even had a chance to put away their cameras before they wandered into Jean Philippe Patisserie last week. That was rather fortuitous, as it turned out, because proprietor Jean-Philippe Maury would show them something that was at least the equal, on a wonders-scale-of-1-to-10, of the gardens' giant rooster: a chocolate fountain.

OK, not just any chocolate fountain. Any caterer worth his sea salt has one of those these days. No, this is a giant chocolate fountain, a colossal chocolate fountain -- a chocolate fountain that would give Willy Wonka pause. It's a 27-foot-tall chocolate fountain, with three types of chocolate flowing through 25 suspended glass vessels. It's real chocolate, and it's spectacular.

"It should be, after two years," Maury sighed.

Maury might be forgiven if he gazed at his creation with pride mixed with remembered frustration. As he spoke, he'd been awake for more than 27 hours, attending to the attention his patisserie and its chocolate fountain are drawing.

"We can say business is great," Maury said. "It's even more than I was expecting. I would say we didn't have a soft opening."

If Maury's name is familiar, it's because he's been executive pastry chef at Bellagio, 3600 Las Vegas Blvd. South, since its opening in 1998, and stacking up the honors before and after. In 1997, he was awarded a gold medal as the best pastry chef in France -- an honor that allows him to wear a striped collar bearing the colors of the French (and, coincidentally, the American) flag. Maury was working at Payard Patisserie in New York when he was recruited for the Bellagio job, lured by the promise that once things were up and running, he'd get his own shop. There was just one little problem.

"When we opened the Bellagio, it was so busy, I don't know how we could've opened two things at the same time," Maury said. With a Godzilla-scale resort to supply with his meticulously crafted creations -- sweets for the suites, as it were -- the pastry shop would have to wait.

There were a few more goals to pursue as well. In 2001, Maury was on the team that won the National Pastry Competition, and in 2002 on the team that won the World Pastry Competition. In 2003 and 2004 he repeated those honors, as team coach.

"So now I'm done," he said. "Now I take care of my shop."

Management finally gave him the nod for the shop two years ago, and Maury's been planning and testing ever since.

"To be a partner with the Bellagio is one of the best things you can get in this world," he said. So, "now I have two part-time jobs." And then, with a laugh, "part time is 12 hours."

The patisserie offers one-stop shopping for those with a taste for the finer things in life. There are 30 varieties of those amazingly detailed, colorful -- and, not incidentally, quite pleasing to the palate -- pastries, plus gelatos, sorbets, chocolates, sandwiches, salads and beverages. As shoppers browse, bakers work.

"The main action station is a crepes station," Maury said, "so we're doing savory crepes and sweet crepes."

The shop has a retail component, as well, of housemade foods. There are chocolates, other candies, cookies, hot chocolate, nuts, jams, tea and coffee, the latter specially blended for Maury in San Francisco. The most popular retail item, he said, is a box of three large Rice Krispie balls, which sells for $18.

From the pastry selection, he's selling a lot of Imperials, which involve chocolate mousse, vanilla crŹme bržlée and crispy nuts, and his cheesecake, which is enveloped with white chocolate and shaped somewhat like a purse. They're among the 300 to 350 pastries the shop sells each day -- up to 450 daily on a busy weekend.

"It's a lot of pastry," Maury said.

There are cakes, as well -- viewed via an interactive computer, which serves as a space-age cake book. Customers can browse via the main computer screen, then view larger versions of the creations on video screens above. The shop offers deliveries and mail order -- and has been filling orders for six to 10 cakes a day.

"I've been very surprised from the first day we opened, how many locals we've gotten," Maury said. "People were saying, `Oh, we live in Vegas and we're so happy you've opened a shop like this.' I guess people are pleased. They want to try something different. They feel they can have a little touch of Europe."

In fact, Maury said, when he opened the shop, he was convinced he had to offer cookies and brownies to appeal to American tastes. But they didn't sell.

What did?

"Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate."

Which brings us back to that chocolate fountain. Maury began thinking about that as soon as he got the go-ahead for the shop.

"It was my dream," he said. "What can I do to open a really one-of-a-kind shop? I want to do a chocolate fountain."

He approached the NODA design firm of Norwood and Antonia Oliver.

"I can tell you, those people are really amazing," Maury said. "I sat down with Norwood and we really started to get crazy. I knew what could be done with chocolate and what couldn't.

"Two years later, the baby was born. But I can tell you, the birth was tough."

It wasn't, you see, quite as simple as constructing a waterfall.

"Water doesn't change," Maury said. "Chocolate is complicated."

It must be at the proper temperature to flow properly, for starters. Then there's the issue of the chocolate's viscosity, which affects the flow. And the viscosity of chocolate changes with every little bit of moisture in the air.

"The envy of chocolate is humidity," Maury said. With an increase in the humidity, cocoa butter and coconut oil must be added to the 2,100 pounds of chocolate in the tank. Maury takes viscosity readings every two or three days.

The 25 glass vessels from which the chocolate flows are each unique, and each handmade in Montreal. Maury and Oliver tested the system there for seven months.

And not without peril. In the warehouse where they were testing it, space heaters were positioned to keep the air sufficiently warm. One night when no one was there, one of the vessels came loose and dropped chocolate on a space heater, starting a fire. By the time Maury arrived, the police and fire departments were already there and damage was minimal.

"Can you imagine?" he asked. "The newspaper: `Chocolate Fountain Burns Down the Whole Warehouse'!"

"Every time I have a nightmare, it's this thing," he said, gesturing. "I dream it's falling off and there's chocolate everywhere.

Maury's satisfied that his finished creation is the only one of its kind.

"Let people copy my fountain," he said. "I'm not worried about that."