Rocq’s macarons rock with customers and retailers

LAKE FOREST – Eddy Rocq expertly places dollops of whipped egg whites, almond powder and powdered sugar onto patterned stencils on a baking sheet.

Then the 33-year-old pastry chef, who has cooked for celebrities such as Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro and the Lakers, gives a few hard whacks to the baking sheet, giving the meringue cookie layers the perfect shape.

They bake for about 15 minutes and voila, a century-old French delicacy loved by Marie Antoinette, is ready to savor.

Rocq’s macarons, a double-layered meringue cookie filled with flavored ganache that’s crispy on the outside and soft and smooth on the inside, has become all the rage among his clientele.

Rocq can’t keep up with the demand for the 90-calorie delicacy. He sells more than 1,000 a week from his 1,200-square-foot Rocq Café that he opened in Lake Forest five months ago. Word-of-mouth has spread the cookies’ popularity from weddings, to catered high-end events to baby showers.

Demand is so intense that Rocq hopes to open a larger bakery where he could produce up to 25,000 macarons a day in Laguna Hills next month. Now, he bakes four cookie trays at one time. Once the new facility opens, he expects that to change to 60 trays at one time.

But private events aren’t the only place the prestigious delicacy is found. Already available at catered events at Nordstrom, other national retailers want to sell the colorful cookies, too. On Valentine’s Day, the heart-shaped delights debuted at Williams-Sonoma. Flavors available there include lemon-basil, rose, passion fruit and chocolate mint. A box of 24 cookies sells for $60 online.

The cookies, created from all-natural ingredients, will hit the shelves at the new Whole Foods in Fashion Island in September. They will also be sold at Whole Foods in Laguna Niguel and Tustin. Ultimately, Rocq said they will be sold at 48 stores in the state.

Come October, Rocq plans to sell a version of his premiere brand at up to 25 Costco stores statewide.

That’s not all. When Oprah Winfrey sampled some from a box, she asked for more boxes to be delivered to her staff, Rocq said.

“They tasted them and said, ‘We need to do a photo shoot,'” he recalls.

Now the macarons will be featured in The Oprah Magazine in September as part of her promotion for women’s health. A quarter of the proceeds from the sale of the cookies through the magazine will benefit the Women’s Wellness Center at Mission Hospital.

What makes the macarons so good, and so successful?

At 14, Rocq enrolled in a culinary school in Paris that not only taught cooking but science, math, history and everything else he needed for a demanding French education. Rocq had to wear a suit and tie to school. If his shirt was un-tucked or his shoes weren’t polished, he was sent home.

Discipline, etiquette, talent and smarts led to his success. At 19, he passed a national culinary test, with the highest score across France. The result landed him an opportunity to study internationally, leaving him an option to go to Japan or America.

He chose America, specifically Newport Beach, a place he’d visited as a kid and liked. He went to work at the Meridian Hotel, now the Fairmont. He stayed for nine months but felt there was something lacking in what he was learning.

He went back to Paris and worked with a master pastry chef. The hours were intense. Rocq started at 4 a.m. and finished at 5 p.m. Then he took on a second job working at restaurants along the Champs-Élysées and basically living out of his car.

A year later, he came back to California and worked as the executive chef in charge of three restaurants at L’Ermitage in Beverly Hills. Experienced with hectic and demanding hours in Paris, Rocq got a different taste of culinary work there. He lived at the hotel so he could be on call 24 hours a day to cater to VIP guests with high and demanding expectations.

The routine was grueling and Rocq looked for other options.

“I had goals and a lot of ambition,” he said. “I wanted to do something and I didn’t want to be stuck in a kitchen for my whole life. I wanted to have more people experience my food.”

He took a job as a pastry chef at the Center Club in Costa Mesa, catering company gigs until he finally decided to do his own catering, renting a facility in San Clemente. He now caters for Nordstrom and USC.

Still, he wanted more. The thought of a little café came to mind. After winning a liquor license in a lottery, he and his wife looked for a spot for the café. They had three months to find the right spot.

With 10 days left before the liquor license would run out, they found a place in Lake Forest.

“We came by and had a good feeling and we took it,” he said.

Rocq Café started as breakfast and lunch place. Three weeks ago, Rocq launched a dinner seating. Thirty people can be seated at a time. The crowds came and some dinner guests waited at the strip mall off Lake Forest Drive for 45 minutes to get a spot. On Friday, Rocq will offer three dinner seatings, one at 5:30, 7 and 8:30 p.m.

Despite his success, Rocq is his own biggest critic.

“Making the macarons, it’s very difficult to get the right texture and consistency,” he said.

Pulling out a baking sheet, Rocq pointed at a macaron.

“See this bump, that’s a piece of almond powder that wasn’t well-sifted,” he said. “My chef would not be proud of a macaron with a lump in it.”

Rocq Café

Contact the writer: 949-454-7307 or eritchie@ocregister.com or twitter.com/lagunaini