Sweets Chez Ludovic
Photo courtesy
By Nick Fonda
Local Journalism Initiative
Somehow, the term pastry chef doesn’t quite have the same ring as pâtissier, just as the word pastries doesn’t necessarily evoke the image of the delectable petits gâteaux traditionally found at a salon de thé. The pastries available at Chez Ludovic are unmistakably in the latter category.
“I’m a traditionalist,” says Ludovic Meunier who owns and operates a small pâtisserie on the corner of Heriot and Loring Streets in downtown Drummondville. “There is a new wave in the world of pastries, but the recipes I use all have a long history. Some I’ve tweaked a little bit, but the cakes and pastries I make are essentially the same as those you might have eaten a century ago.”
Born in the town of Mortain, Normandy, Ludovic grew up near Paris. At the age of 17 he started a two-year program where he learned to make pastries, chocolates, and ice cream.
“It was a hands-on education,” he says. “We would spend one week in the classroom, and then three weeks working as apprentices in one type of shop or another. It was learning by doing.”
There were no family antecedents with a similar interest in baking, but Ludovic knew from early on that it was what he wanted to do. He was happy to find that there was a demand for his skills.
“It’s not difficult to find work if you’re a pastry chef,” he says. “It’s also a trade that lets you travel the world. French pastries have been introduced pretty well around the globe. There were lots of openings when I graduated and, if I’d wanted to, I could have worked as far afield as Scotland or Brazil.”
That Ludovic ended up in Canada had much to do with a family vacation he took in January of 1991.
“I came with my parents,” he recalls. “I remember standing on the Plains of Abraham on a day when the thermometer was at minus 15 C and there was a bit of a wind to top it off. It was brisk. Yet, the cold here in Quebec is a dry cold. In France, the air is damp and the cold is more penetrating.”
Two years after that trip, in March 1993, young and single, Ludovic came to Canada as a landed immigrant. He found a job in Three Rivers. There he met Line Vaillancourt, a native of Danville. The couple moved to Sherbrooke, where they stayed for a year and a half before moving downriver to Drummondville in 1996 to open their own French pastry shop.
“We found a place on Brock Street, just a few blocks away,” Ludovic says. “It took two of us to run the place. I worked in the kitchen in the back and Line served our customers in the front of the shop. When we started, we had a few tables and we served coffee, but the café part of the business never really took off. I no longer even have a coffeemaker.”
In 2000, Ludovic changed location and settled into one of Drummondville’s oldest, and most historically significant houses, built in 1881, by William John Watts whose family played an important role in the city’s early history.
Ludovic Meunier starts his day early.
“I’m up at 3:30 in the morning and here by 4 ,” he explains. “I turn on my ovens, take the croissants out of the cold room to let them rise, and I start my day. Everything sold here is made from scratch. I work alone in my kitchen and I generally have two or three things on the go at the same time. With breads and pastries, there’s always a wait time between steps, and during that time I work on something else: prepare a quiche, whip up a cream, or doing whatever is next on my to-do list. My day in the kitchen is planned and structured. I like things to be precise.”
Croissants are in a perpetual state of fabrication. Made of flour, butter, sugar, yeast, and a dash of salt, the dough has to be repeatedly rolled out and folded over on itself, and then given time to rest.
“Because of the butter, the trick to croissants is to work on a cool surface,” Ludovic explains. “A wood surface is much better than a metal surface for that reason. The actual work time on a batch of croissants—rolling the dough, slicing it into squares, and folding them into their crescent shape—is probably an hour and a half. If it takes a long time to make them, it’s because they need time to rest, and later, to rise.
Making pastries like the Pavé Royal similarly requires wait times of varying length between the multiple steps.
“The bottom layer of the Pavé Royal is a praline, a mixture of almonds, hazelnuts, sugar, and a specialty biscuit,” he explains. “Over that is a layer of chocolate cake, then a layer of mousse made of whipped cream and chocolate, topped with a blanket of cocoa powder.”
“This is one of the recipes that I’ve tweaked,” he continues. “I’ve made the bottom layer thicker, and I’ve made the pastry a little less sweet. I prefer it like that, and my customers do too. I make close to 20 different pastries and cakes, including éclairs and fruit tarts. Some, like Yule logs and galette des rois, which I make at Christmas time, are seasonal.”
Typically, on an annual basis, Ludovic will use 1200 pounds of butter, 600 kilos of two different types of flour, and 200 kilos of sugar.
“I’m in the kitchen all day,” he says. “On the days that the shop is open—Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning till 12—I leave about half an hour after the shop closes at 5:30.”
Not only does Ludovic put in a long day, he also puts in a long week. Although the shop is only open three and a half days a week, his weekend consists of Sunday afternoon. He does, however, give himself an annual holiday, about four weeks in the summer that he and Line spend with family in Normandy, in the area around Mont St. Michel.
Ludovic is a specialty shop, at the far end of the spectrum from big box stores. It appeals to a limited, but faithful clientele.
“I’ve been here 28 years,” Ludovic Meunier says, “long enough that clients who first walked in the door with their parents when they were 10 or 12- years-old are now coming in with young children of their own. Over that time some people have passed on and new ones have started coming, but overall, my clientele is very stable. Almost all are regular customers. With many of them, if I see them come in, I can usually predict what they’re likely to choose.”
“My busiest days are Friday and Saturday,” he continues. “Lots of people will call in the morning and ask for something in particular. It does occasionally happen that at the end of the day I have half a dozen loaves of bread left, and it also happens that a customer comes in at 2 p.m. to buy a loaf of bread for supper and everything I’ve baked is already sold. But usually, I’m fairly good at estimating how much I should prepare. Business in the summer is slower than in the winter, and the busiest time of year runs from mid-October to Christmas.”
“If you count the hours, I’m probably working for much less than minimum wage,” Ludovic Meunier says, “but I love what I do. The pleasure I see in people’s faces is worth more than money.”
French pastries have been described as being very attractive and as expensive as they are small. They are very much a specialty item, but there are several French pastry shops in the Townships, including two in Drummondville.
Ludovic’s eponymously named shop, according to more than one afficionado of petits gâteaux, offers among the best pâtisseries.
For more information Ludovic can be reached at 819 477-7131.
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