Hi there everyone!
Today’s post is slightly different from the usual ones. It isn’t even set in Goa like the others. It features a place from one of our neighbours, Mumbai.
I hope you’ll like it. Let’s dive in…
I love all things French, and like many people out there, my dream is to visit France. In particular, Paris, someday. But this dream will have to continue being a dream for some more time and at the very least till this lockdown ends.
How is this connected to the post you ask? The inspiration behind this post and I share a love for all things Paris, and through her creations, she takes me to the place I long to visit someday.
She’s a woman who needs no introduction, but I’ll try to introduce her as best I can.
She is a strong, self-made and goal-driven entrepreneur. Someone who dons many hats, be it a pastry chef, an author, a reader, a learner, an accountant, a podcaster and a strict but lovable leader.
I’m talking about none other than the Macaron Queen of India, Pooja Dhingra, owner of the famous bakery chain, Le15 Patisserie. She is the role model for many young and talented bakers out there and many to-be entrepreneurs as well.
A simple Google search of the honorary title will bring up numerous articles about her achievements and multiple videos about and by her. That’s how famous she has made her little confectionery creations throughout the country and world.
For the uninitiated, a macaron (pronounced: mac-a-RON) is a sweet meringue-based delicacy, created in a myriad of colours and a variety of fillings sandwiched in between (think cookie sandwich).
Just FYI, I do not know Pooja personally. She isn’t my friend or family, heck I have never even met her! Although I was very close to a couple of months ago when she visited Goa. But, as luck would have it, the encounter didn’t work out.
So, this post is just a small tribute to one of my baking inspirations and a gem of a person, from what I’ve read.
She’s very kind too. She occasionally indulges with replies to my DMs. Everything I’ve learnt about her is either from reading about her or from her social media. She’s very active on Instagram so that helps (this also says a lot about how active I am, doesn’t it?)
Her patisserie reached a milestone in March this year by completing 10 years, which is a feat in itself. And a decade in the pastry business has given her great insights and experiential anecdotes that she shares on her Instagram stories or in interviews if asked.
Pooja has gone through her fair share of trials and hardships. From starting her business young to not being taken seriously because of her age to almost having a financial crisis early on because of a misjudged hire that she trusted too much.
But her ever-so-smiling face is what everyone remembers and knows her for, apart from her pièce de résistance, the macarons, that is.
My first tryst with macarons was thanks to her itself, at her Bandra outlet. And having been inspired by her, I recently baked my first batch of macarons too!
So I felt a weird sense of loss when I read that she had to make the heart-breaking decision to shut the doors to her Colaba Café for the foreseeable future owing to the rising costs due to the pandemic.
The iconic photographs of her footwear in front of the Le15 Café Colaba signage on the honeycombed tiles shall now feature as throwbacks.
The famous corner table that most people reserved, Pooja’s favourite spot as well, in this café that I longed to visit someday will now remain a distant dream.
Her daily kitchen updates, weekly Sunday Baking Club sessions, monthly Table No 13 gatherings, yearly festive get-togethers and occasional snaps of children peering into the display contemplating their order in the familiar surroundings of the Café, will be missed.
An emotion I can best describe as Fernweh (feeling homesick for a place you’ve never been or could never go to). And it’s one thing I’ll regret not doing during my numerous trips to the city.
I can’t even imagine what regular café visitors feel about not being able to frequent their favourite haunt anymore.
But everyone who knows Pooja knows that she’ll bounce right back up and, to quote her verbatim, take over the world. After conquering Mount Fiji that is. And she’ll have everyone who adores and looks up to her right by her side.
For those of you who have been lucky enough to visit the Café and would like to help Pooja out, you can purchase her e-cookbook, Le15 Café Cookbook. It comprises 50 of the most loved recipes straight from the kitchen of the Le15 Café in Colaba.
She considers it her café’s legacy and it’s also her way of showing gratitude to the people who patronised it over the years.
Apart from that, for those of you who can’t travel to Mumbai to taste her macaron delights, like moi, they deliver macarons to 12 cities (at last count). And none of it would have been possible without her grit and determination to, again I quote, “conquer the world”.
P.S. Her other outlets around the city remain. But I think everyone will agree that there’s none like the Colaba Café.
Au revoir, Le15 Café Colaba! À bientôt, j'espère!
All images courtesy: Pooja’s Instagram page