Chef Roland Mesnier, longtime White House Executive Pastry Chef, mentor and teacher, prolific author, and speaker, passed away on August 26, 2022, following complications from cancer. He was 78.
Mesnier began his pastry career at the age of 14. Apprenticing to his older brother Jean, Roland began working at the local patisserie in exchange for room and board.
From there he was hired as the pastry sous chef at the iconic Savoy Hotel in London, then was hired as Executive Pastry Chef and spent nine years at the legendary Princess Bermuda resort where he met and married his wife, Martha Whiteford, a vacationing American schoolteacher from Fairmont, West Virginia and they had a son, George.
Roland and his family returned to France, where he served as the Executive Pastry Chef at the George V Hotel in Paris before returning to Bermuda.
In April 1976, Roland came to the U.S.as Executive Pastry Chef at The Homestead, a prestigious resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia.
Roland Mesnier was hired by the first lady Rosalyn Carter during the Carter administration in 1979 as White House Executive Pastry Chef and emerged as the longest-tenured chef ever to serve there.
On Mesnier’s days off from the White House he developed and taught the first professional Pastry Arts Program at L’Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda, MD – currently ranked in the top 10 Culinary schools in the United States.
Following his retirement in 2004, Mesnier wrote a book about his White House experiences, titled All the President’s Pastries (2007).
Chef Mesnier won 18 gold medals, 4 silver and 3 bronze for his pastry creations in competitions around the world.
He was a member of the Academie Culinaire de France and the recipient of many awards including the French Legion of Honor in 2005.
In 2005, Mesnier was inducted into the Chocolate and Pastry Hall of Fame in New York.
He was awarded a Doctorate of Culinary Arts from the prestigious Johnson & Wales University in South Carolina.
Roland Mesnier is the author of three books, Dessert University, Basic to Beautiful Cakes and All the Presidents Pastries: Twenty Five Years at the White House, A Memoir.
He was predeceded in death by his wife, Martha, and survived by his son, George Mesnier.
Roland Mesnier’s funeral arrangements are yet to be announced by the family.