Grand Illusion

When chef Titouan Claudet was tasked with creating a dessert for the tasting menu at L’Atelier Robuchon, at The Woodward Geneva, Auberge Collection, his first instinct was to craft a crowd-pleaser. For many titans of pastry that would translate into one primary ingredient: chocolate. But Claudet—who hails from Besançon, France, and has shared the kitchen with luminaries such as Anne-Sophie Pic and won Gault&Millau’s coveted Pastry Chef of the Year in 2025—the answer lay in a flavor more subtle: vanilla. “After the tasting menu, chocolate is too heavy,” he says. “Vanilla is universally loved but lighter and more refined.”

Still, this would be no vanilla vanilla dessert. Rather, La Vanille would be an exercise in illusion and texture—a sculptural interpretation of the vanilla pod itself, rendered in caramel, mousse, ice cream, and biscuit. Claudet began with its silhouette, which he crafted from cookie dough set in a custom mold and darkened with charcoal-tinted caramel. Inside, the composition came together layer by layer: a base of vanilla cream, crisp biscuit, praline for depth, and confit calamansi for a bright, citrusy snap, followed by vanilla ice cream and a featherlight vanilla mousse sealed beneath the caramel lid. Placed on a dish atop a pattern of vanilla cremeux, the pod is presented with a tableside pour of vanilla crème anglaise. Diners are encouraged to carve the pod rather than deconstruct it “so that every bite includes all of the elements—all the texture,” Claudet says. “This is the experience of La Vanille.”