The Chocolate Guardian in the Clouds – A Meeting with the Pastry Chef of Hotel de la Coupole

It was a scent that found me before I found him.

A heavy, warm aroma of cocoa and caramelized sugar drifting like a soft veil through the hotel corridor. I was supposed to be checking in. Instead, I followed the scent.

And at the other end of that aromatic trail stood Hieu Tran, also known as Hendrix Tran – Hotel de la Coupole’s own pastry chef. Smiling, focused, surrounded by cocoa beans, old sewing machines, beautiful jars, and tools that looked as much like art as kitchen equipment.

It looked as though he stood in his own atelier in the middle of the mountains, creating something alive from something brown, glossy, and warm.

I had to ask. I had to know who he was. How a man like this – so precise, so passionate, so calm in his movements – had ended up in a mountain town like Sa Pa, inside a hotel that feels like a couture house placed among the clouds.

When he told his story, I understood why the scent had felt almost magnetic.

A journey from the Mekong Delta to a couture house in the clouds

Hieu Tran comes from the Mekong Delta, a world as far from Sa Pa’s misty mountains as one can imagine.

A place where rivers divide the land, and fruit, sugar, and coconut hang heavy in the air.

But it wasn’t until he left home that he discovered his true language: dessert.

Over the course of 12 years, he has traveled across Vietnam in a way few people ever do – not as a tourist, but as a professional.

He has worked in:

• Phu Quoc

• Ho Chi Minh City

• Ha Long and Quang Ninh

• Hanoi

• and finally Sa Pa

The hotels have been 4- and 5-star, but the journey has been internal as much as external.

Everywhere he has gathered ingredients, stories, techniques, scents, and encountered produce he had never seen at home.

He told me:

“For me, pastry is not technique. It is emotion. Stories. Connection.

I want to create desserts that remind you of something, or make you feel something.”

And that was exactly what made the encounter so strong:

He doesn’t just make cakes.

He creates experiences.

French finesse, Vietnamese soul

Hieu is as much an artist as he is a pastry chef.

He speaks about flavor the way a painter speaks about colors.

For him, everything is about the balance between two worlds:

– the delicate precision and elegance of French pastry

– the deep, warm, earthy soul of Vietnamese ingredients

He said:

“I want to create French desserts that taste of Vietnam.”

This hotel – with its Art Deco lines, indigo textiles, gold accents, and dark woods – is the perfect stage for his work.

It truly feels as if the architecture and the pastry chef speak the same language.

Both create something that lives somewhere between fantasy and tradition.

A chocolate moment

When I met him, he held two round cacao fruits in his hands, like small dark treasures.

He explained how he works with chocolate from bean to bar, and how Sa Pa’s cool, humid, ever-changing climate actually affects his craft.

It makes the process more challenging, he said, but also more rewarding.

I could see it in the way he moved his hands.

Calm. Precise. Loving, almost.

A pastry chef who stays in the memory

There was something about Hieu Tran that made an impression far beyond chocolate and skill.

Perhaps because he doesn’t just create food – he creates identity.

Perhaps because he, like the hotel he works in, unites two worlds that aren’t supposed to fit – and makes them sing.

He shared his journey. I shared mine.

And for a moment, surrounded by cocoa, lamps, and couture-inspired interiors, our stories met.

This is not just a pastry chef in a luxury hotel.

This is a man carrying an entire journey with him – from delta to mountains, from childhood to craft, from one home to another.

And the scent that led me to him?

It lingers still.