Lyece Major

Four Seasons Tenure

• Since 2023
• First Four Seasons Assignment: Current

Employment History

• Duende, Nîmes, France; Majestic, Cannes; Les Neiges, Courchevel, France; Hotel Crillon Le Brave, Provence; Langham Hotel London; Cut Brasserie, Dubai; K2 Palace, Courchevel; Vague d’Or, Chevel Blanc, Saint-Tropez; La Réserve de Beaulieu, France; Mas du Langoustier, Porquerolles, France; L’Oasis, Mandelieu, France

Education

• Diploma, Hotel School de Marseille, France

Birthplace

• Marseille, France

Languages Spoken

• French, English

Even before stepping into the pastry kitchen at Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva, Lyece Major knew there would be challenges ahead of him as Pastry Chef. He also knew he was the right chef for the job. “Management was looking for someone who could reimagine things while keeping up with demanding volume, and fortunately those are my strengths,” he says, noting that in pastry, figuring out what one can’t do is just as important as knowing what one can. “In the end, it’s all about adapting my style and the efficiencies I’ve learned over the years to the needs of the Hotel and the refined tastes of our guests.”

Major sums up his style of pastry as “reimaging the classics by combining basic techniques with unexpected ingredients, flavours and textures.” A good example is the cheese with saffron and candied red peppers that he made for the tasting portion of his interview with Hotel management. As with every dessert he prepares, the key to its success was using the finest and freshest ingredients. “It is always important to work with what nature gives us. For me, that means seasonal fruit.”

And that means developing productive relationships with local farmers, a skill he has polished throughout a career that has taken him to pastry kitchens along the French Riviera, as well as in Dubai, London, and across France. Along the way, he also figured out his specialty: “It’s no specialty at all, really. I just like fine dining, so I’m really happy to be here in Geneva.”

That happiness sees Major reconceiving pastry menus to play off dishes emanating from the Hotel’s savoury kitchens, with Mediterranean-inspired offerings for Il Lago, classic French pastries with contemporary twists for Le Bar des Bergues, and Asian-style desserts for Izumi. He also creates tempting treats for in-room dining menus, playful amenities to celebrate arrivals and special moments for guests of all ages, and extensive banqueting selections – “I love doing wedding cakes!” – to create memories at gatherings in the Hotel’s event spaces, including the historic ballroom that hosted the inaugural League of Nations.

All of the above takes teamwork as well as talent. Major puts special emphasis on getting to know each of the 15 or so pastry cooks and bakers he manages, the better to understand their strengths and weakness and more effectively train them to develop new techniques and new desserts. Meantime, the Hotel’s pastry kitchen is of good size and well equipped for his needs, though he keeps his eyes peeled for equipment to advance his own technique, noting with a laugh: “As we say in France: You cannot do new with old.”

Born in Marseille along the Mediterranean coast and raised maybe 15 minutes from the sea, Major was inspired to culinary and cuisine by his mother, a talented home baker and enthusiastic cook for he and his three siblings. His first turn on the pastry circuit came by chance when he was assigned to “scoop ice cream and burn sugar” at a local brasserie during a weeklong internship through middle school.

Wanting more, Major studied at the local hospitality school and then landed in the pastry kitchens of a string of Michelin-starred restaurants along the French Riviera, including two-star La Réserve de Beaulieu in Beaulieu-sur-Mer for an experience he remembers as “particularly hard and demanding but very educational.”

By the turn of the millennium, he was head pastry chef at a palace hotel in Courchevel in the French Alps; by age 21, he was opening a high-end brasserie in Dubai, where he honed his English and developed his management skills; and by 25, he had led his team at a luxury address in London to winning the Tea Time of the Year prize, a highly respected honour on the hospitality scene in England.

And, so, Major’s career progressed leading up to Four Seasons overlooking the lake in Geneva. His role with the Hotel is a big one, he acknowledges, but he has long since learned to take outsized responsibilities in stride by focusing on what he and his team do best.

“We not saving lives, after all,” he says with another a laugh. “We’re making dessert dreams come true.”