Through a series of portraits, LCANews takes a look back at the careers of several of the winners of the 2024 French-Australian Excellence Awards. Originally from Strasbourg, France, Quentin Zerr cut his teeth working alongside pastry greats like French Cédric Grolet, before making the leap to Australia and opening his store in Sydney.
There are some passions that we know will shape our lives. For Quentin Zerr, pastry-making is one of them. Educated far from the recognized circles of the profession, this 32-year-old Frenchman has never ceased to challenge himself, enabling him to climb the ladder and practice his art today in an environment where pastry is still in its infancy.
First steps in France
“Anything to do with the world of restaurants and top chefs didn’t appeal to me at all. I didn’t even know what a Palace was! What interested me most was creating“.
After discovering the job alongside his godfather, whom he sees as a “role model“, Quentin Zerr didn’t wait long to immerse himself in this new, yet already familiar, world. “In ninth grade, we had to figure out what we wanted to do later on,” he explains. “And having never really baked a cake before, I knew I was going to like it. I was already very interested in everything to do with colors and the visual aspect of cakes”.
He completed his “CAP” pastry, chocolate, and confectionery diplomas, and obtained a “brevet technique des métiers” in the process, enabling him to start work-study in a small store a few kilometers from his hometown of Strasbourg. But after five and a half years, “I wanted to discover the restaurant pastry business. To learn more, get the technique, and grow faster, I had to go to Paris“.
He then moved to the Restaurant Le Meurice, where he worked under the renowned Cédric Grolet. But here again, the feeling of wanting to evolve in a field that was “rather closed“, admits Quentin Zerr, pushed him to look elsewhere. Not averse to new challenges, this time it’s on the other side of the planet that the next stage of his career is set.
“After Strasbourg, it was Paris, and after Paris, Australia! In two and a half months, I resigned and left“.
“I had no job and no accommodation“
“Australia was a country we talked about a lot with our colleagues in the kitchen, and that interested me,” explains Quentin Zerr. “I was still young, I had a bit of money saved up, and nothing was holding me back. So I thought maybe it was time to use my background and do something crazy!“
For someone who had “never flown before“, he admits, the decision was a turning point in his career: “I left with nothing. When I arrived, I had no job and no accommodation“.
However, the experience he gained in France made it easy for him to find work in his chosen field. “With my Working Holiday Visa, I was able to stay at the InterContinental Hotel in Sydney for six months,” explains Quentin Zerr. “After two months, they offered me a one-year visa, which I paid for, so I was able to perfect my English and continue my experience. Then, at the end of the year, they sponsored me“.
Here again, things moved very quickly. Rising to “junior sous-chef”, giving him a managerial position, Quentin Zerr quickly became “sous-chef”, “a relatively high position“, he explains. In 2022, he was named Australian Pastry Chef of the Year at the 2022 Tourism Accommodation Australia (TAA) NSW Awards for Excellence.
After transferring his sponsorship to Sydney’s Four Seasons Hotel, where he became the hotel’s head pastry chef within a year and a half, the young pastry chef, now a seasoned veteran, didn’t want to stop there. “I couldn’t see myself staying at this hotel for the rest of my career,” admits Quentin Zerr. “I had a dream: to open a boutique”.
The project of a lifetime
Here again, the pattern remains the same: “When I resigned from the Four Seasons, I didn’t have any plans, I just knew what I wanted. I already had a few acquaintances and a certain notoriety on social media, so I knew it was going to be useful to me“.
Last November, Quentin Zerr opened his own boutique in Sydney. A place where, via a “click and collect” system, customers can pick up their fresh, finished orders close to the time they come to collect them. “It’s a way of making their lives easier,” he says.
From finding packaging and a logo, to making recipes and negotiating premises, “you have to keep at it“, admits the young pastry chef. “Especially in a country where the support and the way of setting up a business are different“.
Between his native country and Australia, the young man remains lucid about the gap in the perception and practice of his profession: “In France, it’s a profession that’s constantly evolving. Here, training isn’t as detailed and advanced, and Australia is way behind in terms of apprenticeships and manual trades. Few people take up pastry-making and there isn’t the same culture as in France, but I know the demand will always be there, whatever happens“, he explains.
A structural difference that Quentin Zerr acquired during his career as a catering pastry chef: “As a foreigner coming to Australia, you can’t tell an Australian what to do,” he confides. “You have to adapt to the culture and go with the flow. You always have to listen and never think you know it all“.
A spot to catch
“The aim isn’t to copy what I’ve been able to do in France, but to be able to make a place for myself in a milieu that isn’t sufficiently developed at the moment“.
Quentin Zerr has given himself a year to launch his project, entitled “Qollection”, and to ensure its long-term viability: “I’m already quite well known in the French community,” he explains. “The idea would be to make a name for myself in the community at large, first in Sydney“.
In a country where the culture is more inclined to prefer “avocado toast” to chocolate éclair, the pastry chef knows it won’t be as easy to succeed, but nevertheless sees a new phenomenon taking shape: “It’s 2025 and I think there’s a small niche to be made. There are quite a few bakers opening in Australia, and since Covid-19, there has been a development and a trend towards viennoiseries“, explains Quentin Zerr. “I think the next step is cakes”.
It is also banking on the generational aspect, with young people more inclined to take an interest in this kind of product. “Young people, for example, are more inclined to go for modern, stylized pastries, because that’s what they’ve seen on social networks“, he confides.
The young entrepreneur therefore wants to focus his business on “luxurious” creations, setting himself apart from what’s already on the market and setting the bar “a little higher“, he announces. “The name ‘Qollection’ is like a fashion collection, with a dozen signature cakes that are always available ‘à la carte’, but also with temporary derivatives and exclusive products that will be continually renewed, to play on the ‘limited edition’ aspect”.
“The aim is to transform people’s curiosity so that they come back,” explains Quentin Zerr. “So they have to be impressed right away in terms of taste, smell, visuals, even in the packaging.“
The young man remains cautious about the development of this project, but doesn’t hesitate to think about what’s next: “depending on how the business evolves and my means, I’d like to stay here and use the vacant space to make an exhibition or tasting area“.
Winner of the French-Australian Excellence Awards
At the end of 2024, Quentin Zerr won the 2024 French-Australian Excellence Awards in the “Culinary & Gastronomy” category. An award that punctuated a year already rich in changes and achievements. “I really wasn’t expecting it,” he admits. “When I got the award, it hadn’t even been a week since I’d opened, so it’s a big source of encouragement and motivation“.
“Being recognized within the French community and feeling ‘Franco-Australian’ is the culmination of all the hard work I’ve put in. It’s also when you realize that the French community is very strong here, and I’m very grateful. I’d also like to thank LCANews for all its work on behalf of the French community in Australia“.
A long career still awaits Quentin Zerr, for whom the recipe for success still rests on the same principles: “you have to dare, be afraid of nothing, surround yourself with the right people and those who have already dared to do it“, he judges. “Everything happens in the right place at the right time, but only if you want it to. You have to go out and make your own luck, not wait for it to fall into your lap”.
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