Beverly Hills Pastry Chef Takes the Cake With Art Deco Display

Victory most definitely is sweet for Donald Wressell. Wressell, the executive pastry chef for the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, recently won a spot on the three-member U.S. team for the World Cup of Pastry in Lyon, France.

He competed against hundreds of talented pastry chefs for the coveted spot. After being selected as one of 12 finalists, he took part in a marathon bake-off in Chicago last month. The competition began at midnight and concluded at 8 in the morning. Participants were required to display two identical chocolate tortes, three identical cold desserts and a decorative display. Judging the sweet entries were six international pastry chefs, including Roland Mesnier, executive pastry chef for the White House.

Wressell’s winning display was an Art Deco Hollywood movie set complete with a stage, curtains, camera and reels of film made from sugar. He used poured and pulled sugar techniques to create the set, which involved nearly 120 hours of preliminary preparation before shipping to Chicago.

Wressell said he got the idea for the scene on his way to work one day. Near the intersection of Culver and Overland boulevards in Culver City, he noticed a display that included a piece of film, a film reel and a camera. Wressell went to the library and found a book on Art Deco movie sets, which helped him formulate the design. “The hardest thing for me was getting the concept for the idea,” the Culver City resident said. “The joy is making it.”

Wressell, 32, and his two teammates will be one of 18 teams that will compete in the World Cup of Pastry in January. During the next several months, the three will meet four times in Grand Rapids, Mich., to organize and practice for the competition. The U.S. team plans a theme of conservation and the environment.

“This is something people from around the world can identify with and have a connection,” Wressell said.

The Washington native said that, as a child, he always liked to hang around and straighten up the kitchen. By the time he was a teen-ager, he was cooking family dinners and regularly watching the Galloping Gourmet cooking program.

During high school, he washed dishes and prepped food for a diner near his home after school and on weekends. A few years later, Wressell graduated from the Washington State Chef Assn.’s culinary program and began an apprenticeship at the Washington Athletic Club, which included a stint in the pastry shop.

“I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a pastry chef,” he said.

Wressell’s career as a pastry chef led him to pastry shops at several hotels across the country. In 1985, he joined the Four Seasons Hotel chain in Philadelphia as an assistant pastry chef.

The Wellness Community-Westside has appointed Ronald Hallal to its board of directors.

Hallal, a longtime Santa Monica resident, also serves as president of the Kiwanis Club of Santa Monica and is a member of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce.

The self-employed certified public accountant is a graduate of UCLA.

Robert Klein, chairman of the Jimmy Stewart Relay Marathon for the past two years, has been appointed senior vice president of St. John’s Hospital and Health Center Foundation.

Klein, a trustee of St. John’s Foundation since 1988 and vice president of the foundation’s executive committee, will lead the hospital’s fund-raising efforts.

He lives in Pacific Palisades.

Two Westside residents were recently named chairman and vice chairman of the Loyola Marymount University Board of Regents.

Brentwood resident Christopher Wrather was named chairman and Playa del Rey resident R. Chad Dreier was named vice chairman.

The Board of Regents is an advisory board to the university’s governing Board of Trustees, the president and administration.

Margaret Prizer has been named associate dean of UCLA Extension. Prizer will help oversee the extension program, which offers more than 4,000 classes to about 100,000 students annually. She had served as chief administrative officer in the executive department of medicine at UCLA.