Jacques Génin is a French chef, cookery book writer, and well-known chocolate and caramel maker in Paris.[1]
He supplies chocolates, caramels and petits fours to more than 200 top French hotels and restaurants, including the Hôtel de Crillon, the Plaza Athénée and Le Meurice.[2] His chocolate factory has been described by the New York Times as "a holy site for connoisseurs,"[3] and in 2008, he opened a shop selling to the public in the Marais neighbourhood of Paris.[2] [4]
Genin is not a qualified maître chocolatier under the French system, but is self-taught, and has described himself as a rebel. He began his career in food in a slaughterhouse, opened his first restaurant when he was 28, and at age 33 worked as head pâtissier at the global chocolate company La Maison du Chocolat.[2] In 2010, he was named one of the top French chocolatiers by the Club des Croqueurs de Chocolat.[5]