Who is TikTok chocolatier Amaury Guichon? - Eat Out

May 07, 2025

Here's everything you need to know about the Australian exclusive from 'The Chocolate Guy'.

American Express delicious. Month Out (AEDMO) is set to be extra sweet this year, with world-renowned chocolatier and pastry chef Amaury Guichon headlining a very special experience. Amex Presents Chocolate by Amaury Guichon will include a special pop-up store at 20 Martin Place in the Sydney CBD from Thursday, May 8 to Saturday, May 10, where he will be offering guests the chance to buy a new chocolate creation developed especially for AEDMO. Introducing the Cocoa Eventail.

Read on to find out why so few people on the planet have had a chance to try one of Guichon’s masterpieces.

This is Guichon’s signature decadent layered chocolate fan, but with an Australian twist. It features a bold chocolate cremeux and almond cream between a rich chocolate sable with luscious chocolate ganache inside, all topped with notes of wattleseed. It’s all finished with a piped chocolate diplomat cream and Guichon’s chocolate stamp on a crunchy cacao nib tile.

To bring this dessert to life for the event, it required 100kg of imported chocolate, custom chocolate moulds from Italy, custom stamps from France, 19 hours of piping and five days of prepping. Talk about attention to detail.

Who is Amaury Guichon?

The delicious. team was lucky enough to catch up with Guichon ahead of the pop-up launch, to find out what inspires him, how he got his start, and why having the opportunity to actually taste one of his creations is such a truly rare and exciting opportunity.

How are you feeling ahead of the event?
I am very excited. It is a mad project. I don’t think people realise the logistics it takes to do a high-end pastry in a pop-up store on another continent, gathering moulds from Europe, and the highest quality of chocolate that, by the way, is harder and harder to source now. And having it all delivered on time. So I think Amex is kind of mad to be wanting to pull this together, but I’m also quite glad that they did.

Taking it back to where it all started, what first inspired that love of pastries and chocolate for you?
I kind of picked a culinary trade out of a hat. I was 14 at the time, and started with savoury. I didn’t quite like it. I drifted towards pastry when I was 16, and then I really found my calling. What I liked the most was the transformation of raw ingredients – flour, sugar, butter. On their own, they are not nice to eat, but combined together with the proper expertise, it makes things that people enjoy and use to celebrate the best moments of their life. That’s what I liked the most – the extent of the possibilities; the infinite amount of combinations to transform ingredients into things that bring joy to people.

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A post shared by Amaury Guichon (@amauryguichon)

What first sparked the idea of chocolate sculptures?
Pastry is quite repetitive. When you work in a kitchen, you have your daily production, and it’s the same kitchen; it’s the same everything. In order to keep our passion alive, we started using whatever was around the kitchen that could be used as an artistic medium. I just really loved it. I spent extra time after hours to develop the craft. And when I came to the US 13 years ago, to Las Vegas – of all cities, it really is the city of extravagance. And I think my knowledge of the craft and this extravagant world collided into creating bigger-than-life chocolate showpieces.

What was the very first sculpture that you pulled off?
The very first chocolate showpiece I made, I was 16 years old. It was for an apprentice competition. I made a bonsai tree.

What is the largest sculpture you’ve ever created?
I think there are two fighting for the title. One was a life-sized baby giraffe that reached a little over three metres tall. It was the most-viewed video on TikTok in 2022. It was crazy. And the second one was a velociraptor that was also over three metres tall. This one was the heaviest and larger in scale.

I got two Guinness World Records last year – one for my gigantic chocolate banana pop art as the ‘largest chocolate sculpture of fruit’. I think this one was almost two metres. And one for largest chocolate balloon animal – a balloon dog, like a Jeff Koons style.

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A post shared by Amaury Guichon (@amauryguichon)

How do you think social media has changed the game for food creatives such as yourself?
A lot. I was one of the pioneers that kind of paved the way, not really knowingly at the time, of using a video format and recording behind the scenes in our kitchen, making high-end pastries and chocolate showpieces. It was a way for me to raise awareness of the beauty and complexity that goes into making pastry and having people understand that the price they see in the bakery is justified by the amount of labour, love, knowledge and food costs.

Today, there is no business in the food scene that does not have any social media presence. I think social media is an amazing tool to raise awareness. You use social media to show the world what you sell. It’s a great tool for myself, because I’m having this amazing opportunity to use my knowledge… partnering with amazing companies such as American Express, where it’s really outside-of-the-box thinking. Having a social media presence allows me to be able to do those crazy, cool partnerships.

Most of your followers will only really ever see your creations. How rare is it for people to actually be able to taste them and buy them?
Never. Never, yes.

So next week will be the first time you’ve done a shop on this scale?
On this scale? Absolutely. I’ve done three pop-ups in the past, one-day-only limited amount – like, really, really limited amount, I’m talking a few hundred. And this was, I believe, eight years ago. So in the last eight years, aside from my students, no one has had access to purchase or eat my chocolate, unless they were private parties for events. So Amex really is offering the opportunity to Sydney and to Australia to be the first to be introduced to my pastry.

You’re quite familiar with Australia from your experience here on Dessert Masters. What first surprised you about Australia’s food scene?
I was amazed by the level of expertise, at least on the pastry side, when I first came into season one of Dessert Masters. I came to Australia once before to teach a class, and I was also surprised at how many people were in attendance and how passionate they were about it. I was able to stay there for an extended period of time, so I got to try the food. I’ve only stayed in Melbourne, but Melbourne has an amazing food scene. And I think what I love the most about Australia, it’s the amazing products that are native to Australia. Most of the world does not know about the diversity, the quality you have. I would say you guys are very lucky.

How has it been, working with Maybe Sammy?
They are very creative, which is awesome. You can tell that they have as much passion for mixology as I have for pastry. So it is amazing when two worlds collide. When passionate people put their minds together, they get very inspired. I mean, everybody loves chocolate, but there is balance to chocolate that has to be brought, and I think balancing the concept of pairing dessert with a cocktail requires a lot of finesse. I think they really deliver.

From Thursday, May 8 to Saturday, May 10, Guichon will be taking over 20 Martin Place, Sydney, with Amex Presents Chocolate by Amaury Guichon. The special Amaury Guichon pop-up store will provide guests with the chance to get their hands on one of the chocolatier’s masterpieces for just $15, with the first 100 American Express Card Members through the doors between 10 and 11am each day receiving their Amaury Guichon chocolate creation for free.

For more information about American Express delicious. Month Out, head to delicious.com.au/dmo