Pooja Dhingra started Le15 Patisserie when she was 23. Since then, her business has grown 200 per cent. This is her story.
Long before Pooja Dhingra took
Mumbai by storm with her trademark macarons she she'd wanted to be a
lawyer. Or at least that's what she thought. A week into the course at
Mumbai's Rizvi College and looking at the thick pile of books before
her, Dhingra realised this wasn't her cup of tea.
So she sought
her parents' permission to quit and re-think her career options.
Luckily, her parents seemed to understand AND let her study hospitality
and business management at Cesar-Ritz Hospitality Management School in
Switzerland where she and her brother were classmates.
If that
wasn't cool enough, they even heeded her request to study baking. Which
is how she landed at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris -- one of the finest culinary
and hospitality schools in the world.
When she returned, Dhingra
put her education to good use. She started out small -- from her
mother's kitchen in fact, trying out recipes she'd learnt in France,
making changes to the recipes to suit the Indian weather conditions.
Eventually,
she set up a central kitchen from which the small revolution began.
Following the tried and tested way -- by putting up stalls at every
single sales exhibition and sending out samples -- Pooja Dhingra built
her business from the scratch. In three years, she says it has grown 200
per cent.
Currently, Le15 has three outlets in Mumbai -- two in
the commercial district of Lower Parel and one in the tony suburb of
Bandra.
In a freewheeling chat, Dhingra, who turned 27 on August
5, talks about setting up her business, her future plans and the
difficulty of losing weight in a pastry shop.
'When I saw my law books, my heart sank'
She studied law for a
whole w-e-e-k and thought it was easier to stand in the kitchen for 12
hours every day than become a lawyer.
Quite honestly, I
have no idea why I did that! But I do remember hating it right from the
very beginning. When I saw my law books, my heart sank. I knew I
wouldn't last very long. So I told my parents that I'd like to do
hospitality, which was one of my choices anyway. Mercifully, they agreed
and even sent me off to Switzerland to study…
…And there were no strings attached!
There
was never a question asked. When I returned from Switzerland, I
requested my father to let me study baking and before I knew it, I was
in Le Cordon Bleu. In fact the seed capital for Le15 came from my
father. I've worked on it from there, but the initial investment was
his. I've been lucky that way.
What he did though was to ensure I
never set the bar too low. The one piece of advice he's given me that
I'll always live by is to be sure all the time, never to have doubt and
to go into anything new thinking you will succeed and work towards it.
Business runs in the family
My
father (Jaikishan) runs a customs clearance business but over the
years, he's invested in restaurants. He was the silent partner of one of
Mumbai's earliest Mexican restaurants called Sheriff (in Bandra) and in
a Bhagat Tarachand outlet along the Mumbai-Nashik highway.
Varun,
my brother, studied hospitality and international business management
with me in Switzerland (at Cesar-Ritz Hospitality Management School). He
runs Oye Punjabi, a large restaurant along the same highway today.
My
mother (Seema) used to run a small baking business when we were younger
out of home. Some of my early food memories are of my brother and me
helping her pack chocolates and cakes for her clients.
In retrospect I realise my career choice was quite obvious.
'Luxury comes from paying attention to details'
What the Swiss and Germans taught me
In
Switzerland I did two separate internships. During my first year, I
interned at a small family-run hotel (Villa Toscane). I was 18, had
never been away from home alone and was doing the amount of work that
usually six or seven people would typically do in India. Every morning, I
would serve breakfast to dozens of people, wash up and start over
again. I didn't know a word of French and my boss knew no English. It
was a nightmare.
But by the time I was interning at a five-star
hotel (Trois Couronne) in the final year, I had grown a lot more
confident. I opted for housekeeping and my job involved changing some 60
beds and cleaning toilets. At some point, they recognised what I was
doing and towards the end of my internship, I was going for meetings
with my general manager and instructing people much senior to me. In
French!
In Paris, I interned with a pastry chef who was such a
stickler for perfection that he'd discard anything that had even the
slightest fault.
My years in Switzerland and Paris taught me one
really important thing -- that luxury comes from paying attention to
details. Be it a pillow that must be kept at a 90-degree angle or a
pastry that must not be baked even half a centigrade more or less.
Little things go a long way. All of that was put into practice when we
set up Le15 -- be it the design of the boxes or stickers on boxes, a lot
of attention went into little things.
'It's an amazing feeling to know you're good at something'
Why studying abroad matters
Studying
in a foreign country changes you in ways you can never imagine. You're
alone in an alien country where you don't know anyone and you're pretty
much on your own.
Personally, I discovered my calling at
Cesar-Ritz. I'd always been an average student all through school. But
in Switzerland I excelled in everything; it's an amazing feeling -- to
know that you're good at something.
Paris was a different
experience altogether. As part of the course, we were to run a cafe on
the campus. The days were long and I had to do things like mop floors,
clean toilets, thing I wasn't used to doing otherwise. My day would
begin at six in the morning and end at eight in the night. Sometimes I
wondered what on earth I was doing.
The years I spent in
Switzerland and France introduced me to people from several countries
and cultures. Today I can travel to any of them and know that there will
always be a couch I can crash on.
Working from my mother's kitchen
When
I returned from Paris and started trying out recipes from home, I
realised I couldn't replicate them because of a variety of reasons -- I
was working with local Indian ingredients and I was baking in a city
that far more humidity than Paris. So kept trying, baking all sorts of
things for my family and friends for months. After some 50 failed
attempts I managed to get recipes for the macarons right.
By now
I'd been working for a few months and had figured out from my friends
and family what flavours would work and what wouldn't. But more
importantly, I relied on my instinct. And that told me macarons would
work.
I decided to revolve our business around it; macaron became our star and to this day, that's what we are known for.
We started with some four or six flavours. Today we have about ten, which also keep changing from festival to festival.
'Watching weight becomes difficult when you're a pastry chef'
Getting the word about Le15 out
We
really went the traditional route in many ways. We started by
participating in every single women entrepreneur exhibition there was
and got our contacts, tied up with companies for corporate gifting, sent
out goodies to friends and family. So in any case, our products were
reaching people even without any store.
The kitchen of course got
us a good deal of exposure because the participants there came from all
walks of life -- lawyers, journalists, PRs. That helped us further.
Then
there came a time when we felt there was a need for a point of sale and
we started our first outlet at the Good Earth store in Lower Parel
(South Mumbai).
Someone from Good Earth had tasted our macarons
and when they were undergoing renovation, they asked approached us. The
time was right so we started out.
The weighing scale isn't a pastry chef's best friend
When
I started out, I was paying no attention to my weight, which shows.
14-16 hour workdays were normal. There was one Diwali when I was here
from 7am to 2am. That was when I realised I needed to step back and take
care of myself.
But the attempt to start working on it came about
eight months ago when I consciously began going to the gym or joined
dance classes. But then again, watching weight becomes difficult when
you're a pastry chef.
Every time you taste something you're
working on, it translates to an extra ten minutes on the treadmill. It's
difficult, but I'm working on it. It's important that I step out for an
hour or two every day if I want to continue working.
'We've grown about 200 per cent since we started out'
Le15 as it stands today…
Le15
started with baking classes that took off very well. So, we are
planning to return to that part of our business in a big way. Even
though we currently do have a kitchen space where we conduct these
classes, we've recently rented out a (larger) space next door which will
serve as the new venue for the classes as well as a dedicated learning
place of all things food related.
It will be called Studio15 and
we plan to conduct classes on food writing, food photography, start a
book club and even give out the space on rent to corporate houses and
private groups who can host lunches and parties, cook their own food (or
cater from our kitchens).
Most importantly, the venue will also
serve as an ingredient store. When I started out, I discovered it was a
huge challenge to get a supplier for ingredients. Studio15 will be a
place where you can purchase the ingredients you need but don't usually
get.
… And where it goes from here
We
currently have three outlets in Mumbai. The plan is to introduce two
more in the city by the end of this year and more around the country the
following year. We've grown about 200 per cent since we started out,
which in some ways is good but not as fast in many others. Three stores
in three years isn't something many would like to boast about.
However,
it has been a conscious decision. We did have offers of franchises and
opportunities to expand but I wanted to make sure I learnt every aspect
of my business before I branched out. Now that things are settled; I'm
ready.
How to make chocolate lava cake:
http://ishare.rediff.com/video/nature-and-wildlife/watch-how-to-make-choco-lava-cake/8838327
What I enjoy making and eating
Macarons,
of course but besides that I really enjoy making simple Italian food,
pastas that I can toss up when come home from work and are easy to put
together. But for all that, I am not a very fussy eater. I enjoy
anything that tastes good.
Here's a simple recipe for
Chocolate lava cake (video above):
Ingredients:
- 200 gm Dark chocolate
- 200 gm Amul butter
- 4 eggs
- 50 gm Maida
- 150 gm Castor sugar
- Melt the dark chocolate and butter in the microwave and mix well.
Method
- Add sugar and whisk till the sugar dissolves.
- Add all the eggs one by one. Ensure the mixture is cooled down.
- Mix till yolks dissolve.
- Add
half the maida and whisk it gently. Ensure you don't whisk it too
briskly because you'll end up having a hard cake. The rule is whisk
gently for cakes, briskly for breads.
- Pour it into any bowls that can go into an oven (not microwave but OTG)
- Bake it at 200 degrees centigrade and ready!
