Before it is a pastry, BOJAGI is a gesture: wrapping a gift in a square of cloth, as generations have done in Korea. For the festive season, Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme’s pastry chef translates this ritual into a Yule log with folded lines, extending her dialogue between two cultures through to Epiphany.
Some creations can be savoured before they are even cut. BOJAGI, the Christmas log conceived by Naraé Kim for Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme, is one of them: its form tells a story before a spoon touches it. Its name comes from bojagi (보자기), the traditional Korean art of wrapping gifts in a knotted square of cloth. In Korea, this gesture is far from trivial: it goes beyond the simple function of wrapping to become a symbol of respect, generosity and goodwill towards the recipient. Offering a carefully wrapped object means passing on a wish for happiness along with it.
It is this almost ceremonial dimension that Naraé Kim chose to translate into pastry. Beneath an immaculate covering whose supple yet graphic folds evoke the precise act of folding cloth lies a composition conceived for winter: black tea sponge, chestnut buttercream, chestnut crémeux, vanilla caramel, chestnut mousse and pear mousse. A crisp speculoos layer and finely diced chestnuts add further definition. The log serves 8 to 10 people and is priced at 110 euros.
This is not the first time the chef, whose career bears the dual imprint of French pastry and her Korean heritage, has chosen an everyday Korean object as the starting point for a creation. Her signature lies precisely in this ability to bring two vocabularies into dialogue: the technical rigour and language of French desserts on one side, personal and cultural memory on the other. In this sense, bojagi works almost as a manifesto: pastry as the wrapping of an intention, rather than simply an accumulation of flavours.
A few weeks later, for Epiphany 2027, Naraé Kim continues this dialogue between heritage and nature with La Châtaigne, a galette des rois shaped like the fruit that gives it its name. Its organic silhouette and delicately veined decoration pay tribute to natural forms rather than the galette’s customary motifs. Beneath exceptionally fine inverted puff pastry lies an almond and chestnut frangipane, enhanced by sweet chestnut cream and pieces of roasted chestnut that add aromatic depth and texture. Priced at 65 euros for 6 to 8 people, it reinterprets a French pastry classic with a deliberate economy of means: indulgence is expressed through simplicity of form rather than decorative excess.
The same signature emerges across these two occasions. Naraé Kim does not seek to impose a style recognisable solely through its visual codes, but to make each creation an object that carries meaning before it carries sugar. At Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme, 5 Rue de la Paix, this approach belongs to a broader ambition: a pastry auteur’s practice that refuses to choose between French artisanal excellence and a personal world, preferring to let them coexist, fold after fold, until technique recedes before emotion.
Cette publication est également disponible en :
