Madeleine de Proust co-founder HyoJu Park already has an incredible pastry career that spans three continents under her belt, but the accolades just keep rolling in.

Melbourne’s Madeleine de Proust is one of those rare bakeries that had murmurs swirling around it long before the doors were even opened.

This could be in part due to its unique business concept, which saw the product range uniquely be centred around madeleines that were so perfectly crafted that passers-by sometimes asked if they were soap. It could also be the store’s warm and inviting yet creative design concept, which saw it be shortlisted for the 2024 Australian Interior Design Awards.

However, another possibility could be because of co-founder HyoJu Park’s already impressive career, which spans three continents and reads somewhat like a culinary who’s who with The Langham London, Melbourne’s Attica, and the Michelin-starred Mingles in South Korea all on the list.

It’s an impressive CV for someone who said as a child her ambition was centred on potentially owning a small bakery one day.

“I imagined in the morning I would go and buy ingredients, then come back and bake whatever I wanted that day,” HyoJu said.

“I also used to say I wanted to marry the owner of a chocolate factory, so I could eat as much chocolate as I wanted. That one was more of a joke! At one point I wanted to be an English teacher – I had lots of dreams when I was young.”

Some of the creations on offer at Madeleine de Proust

Building the foundations

HyoJu grew up in Gwangyang in Jeollanam-do in South Korea – a region close to the coast that is famous for food, so it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that HyoJu had culinary aspirations from an early age.

But she said it’s actually her early memories of her mother joining a baking class that stand out from the rest and helped to shape her love for the work.

“Sometimes after school I would come home and she would be baking. I still remember opening the door and smelling the cake and butter from the kitchen,” HyoJu said.

“You didn’t even need to see what she was making. The smell already made you feel happy and excited. I think that stayed with me. Apart from that I just really loved cake. I could buy a whole cake and eat it by myself. I was always very serious about cake.”

The seed was properly planted when HyoJu landed a job at an Italian fusion restaurant in her home town at an age when most of her peers were preparing to go to university. HyoJu, however, was trying to convince her mother to allow her to study cooking.

Her mother was reluctant so they struck a deal: if HyoJu could survive one year working in the kitchen then she would be allowed to go overseas to study culinary arts more seriously.

“I had to prove to her, and also to myself, that I could do it,” HyoJu said.

“It was quite tough because I was very young and didn’t have much experience. Restaurant kitchens are not easy, especially when you are starting. But I kept my head down and stayed for the full year.”

HyoJu was allowed to move to the UK, where she began to study at the University of West London – an institution well regarded for culinary arts – and joined the pastry team at The Langham London during her internship year.

The role exposed HyoJu to classical techniques, fine dining, luxury hotel pastry, afternoon tea, restaurant and banqueting, and she credits this experience to giving her a strong foundation in pastry.

“It taught me discipline, consistency, and how important every small detail is. I think it was here I really started to solidify my skills as a pastry chef,” she said.

“After London I returned to South Korea and joined Mingles. That experience made me look at Korean ingredients in a completely different way.

“When you are younger sometimes you look more towards Western pastry because it feels more exciting or advanced. But at Mingles I started to understand my own roots more deeply. I saw how traditional Korean ingredients and flavours could be treated with the same level of refinement and used in a very modern way.”

The Melbourne patisserie is hugely popular

Creating an icon

After South Korea HyoJu relocated to Australia with her partner in life – and business – Rong Yao Soh, landing at Melbourne’s famed Attica where she worked as Head Pastry Chef for four years before deciding it was time to open her own venture.

She and Rong threw around potential business ideas, unsure about what direction they should pursue. The duo researched and realised they didn’t think another traditional patisserie would work for them. But it was the name, Madeleine de Proust, that gave them the answer.

“At first we didn’t really know what it meant. We searched it and found out about Proust’s madeleine and the idea of nostalgia, where taste or smell can bring back a memory. I thought maybe this is destiny,” HyoJu said.

“Then I thought about the first things I baked when I was young and one of them was a madeleine… we started thinking ‘wouldn’t it be cool if we opened a shop just selling madeleines?’.

“So instead of only doing what I already knew and what I was good at, we decided to explore a new path. From the beginning we just wanted to try to do something no one else in the world had done.”

HyoJu and Rong had, quite simply, nailed it and the doors to Madeleine de Proust were opened in 2023.

A cookbook, Madeleines, followed, which was co-written with Rong and published in early 2026, while HyoJu was named as one of just five Pastry Talent of the Year winners on the 2026 La Liste – which ranks the world’s best within the industry.

The global recognition is one that HyoJu describes as being unreal.

“It was definitely one of the dreams I wanted to achieve in my career. I mean, being able to talk to Pierre Hermé was something I never imagined when I first started my career. I used to sit in the library and read his books, and then suddenly I was standing there, having a conversation with him and taking a photo together,” she said.

“Australia is well-known for amazing bakeries and food, but I think detailed patisserie can sometimes be harder for people to understand here, and sometimes I felt like we were working in our own small world. We knew how much work we were putting into every small detail, but you don’t always know if other people can see it. Receiving the award felt like someone outside our small world had noticed what we were doing. Like someone could finally see the years of work behind it.”

It’s been a huge few years for HyoJu, during which she said she had focused on putting her head down and working hard. Rather than taking it easy for a while though, she said she is already making plans for the future – and that these may not include her iconic madeleines.

“Madeleines will always be part of us, but I don’t want people to think I can only make madeleines… I want to slowly take Madeleine de Proust in a different direction,” she said.

“For the last few years I have been trying to put all my ideas into one small pastry. It was a good challenge and I learned a lot from it, but now I want to express myself more. I want to start exploring more unique petits gâteaux and other types of pastry where I can show more of my techniques, flavours and personality.

“I don’t want to change everything, I want it to happen slowly and naturally. There will be challenges but I just want to keep moving closer to what I really want to create.”