BENGALURU: Celebrity chef Pooja Dhingra believes in making the cake (read macarons) and eating it too. She did that when she introduced macarons to India and eventually opened Le15 Patisserie, which specialises in macarons and a host of French desserts, over a decade ago. After some highs and lows thanks to the pandemic, Dhingra is now back with a new product in the market, cookies which come in various flavours like Crunchy Toffee, Brown Butter Pineapple, Signature Pink Cookie and Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Cookie.
In Bengaluru for its launch at Foodhall, she says, “As soon as you create one item, you immediately start wondering what could be next. Most of the items I have at my cafe perish within a few days, so I wanted to create something that would last longer.”
The pandemic proved to be challenging with Dhingra having to shut down her cafes. “It all boiled down to the cash flow. Having said that, things are picking up and we’re glad that interest is picking up,” says the ‘Queen of Macarons’ as Dhingra has come to be known as.
Recently, among many Bengaluru-based chefs, Dhingra won the award for Pastry Chef of 2022 by Culinary Culture. “I’m honoured to be a part of the list and to have received the award. Having been in the industry for a long time now, you feel like you know what you want and how to go about things. Awards like these help you stay grounded and help you with your next move too,” she says.
So, while running her macaron space, she’s also working on her next book and season three of her podcast titled NoSugarCoat with Pooja Dhingra’. “I honestly have a great team which helps make everything happen. Most of my releases are things that I have been working on for a long time but they just happen to release around the same time. So it’s mostly just managing my day-to-day schedule which isn’t too bad.”
As for her next book, she prefers to keep it under wraps for the moment. “It’s mostly going to be recipes and we’ve narrowed it down to hundreds of them. We’re at the testing stage so it’s going to be a lot of fun — that’s definitely my favourite part,” she says.