Roland R. Mesnier
- Position
- Chef
- Years in President's House
- 1979 – 2004
- Gender
- Male
- Race/Ethnicity
- White
- Biography
Roland Robert Mesnier was born on July 8, 1944, in Bonnay, a small village in eastern France.1 He began studying the culinary craft as a fourteen-year-old pastry apprentice; he advanced through the ranks and worked in pastry kitchens in Paris, Hanover, and Hamburg. He also served at several notable hotels and resorts, including the Savoy in London and the Princess Hotel in Bermuda.2 In 1976, Mesnier and his family moved to the United States, and he worked at the Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Virginia.3
In 1979, he heard about an opening for a pastry chef at the White House and decided to apply. First Lady Rosalynn Carter interviewed and hired him as head pastry chef at the White House. During his twenty-five years there, he created stunning desserts for more than forty kings, queens, princesses, and heads of state. However, his most famous desserts were the series of gingerbread houses displayed in the State Dining Room for the winter holiday decorations.4 He retired in 2004.5
Chef Mesnier stayed busy in his retirement, founding the Professional Pastry Program for the (former) L’Academie de Cuisine and teaching at schools throughout the United States, speaking at public engagements, and authoring several books with the White House Historical Association. Roland Mesnier died on August 26, 2022, and was buried at Fairfax Memorial Park in Virginia.6
In 2025, the White House Historical Association published the Roland Mesnier Collection, making more than 1,000 images and documents from Chef Mesnier’s private collection available to the public.
- Roland Mesnier - In Memoriam 1944–2022 Longtime White House Executive Pastry Chef and Author." White House History. White House Historical Association, Accessed November 2, 2025. https://www.whitehousehistory.org/roland-mesnier-in-memoriam-1944-2022.
- Ibid.
- “Roland Mesnier, Pastry Chef to Five Presidents, Dies at 78,” New York Times, August 30, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/dining/roland-mesnier-dead.html.
- Ibid; Roland Mesnier and Mark Ramsdell, Creating the Sweet World of White House Desserts: A Pastry Chef’s Secret (Washington, DC: White House Historical Association, 2019), Pg. 1190.
- Several years before Mesnier retired, a former White House staff member filed a lawsuit against him and President Bill Clinton, accusing the former of sexual harassment and retaliation; the case was dismissed by a federal judge the following year. See “White House Chef Accuses Boss of Sexual Harassment,” The Washington Post, September 13, 2000; “Mesnier’s Influence Beyond the White House,” The Washington Post, June 1, 2004; “Roland Mesnier, Pastry Chef to Five Presidents, Dies at 78,” New York Times, August 30, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/dining/roland-mesnier-dead.html.
- “Roland Mesnier,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/243028414/roland-mesnierMzIkbDAkaDA.
- Birthplace
- Bonnay, France
- Burial Place
- Fairfax Memorial Park
- Blue markers indicate birthplaces and green markers indicate burial places. Black markers are used for places of both birth and burial.