Page 48 - Demo

CHAMP PHANICHKUL
Words: Nan Tohchoodee
Dear Rosie
In a city like Bangkok, food trends come and go fairly quickly, especially for desserts, but Patisserie Rosie stays true to their ethos. “For us, avours always come rst,” said Champ Phanichkul, executive pastry chef and owner of Patisserie Rosie. “Nowadays, there are so many places that make food that just looks good on camera, but is not nourishing to the body and mind. If your food is Instagram material then great, but the truth is, only when the food tastes great and evokes a certain sense of nostalgia do people come back again and again.”
Having worked in the food industry for more than 10 years and trained in a traditional kitchen in Australia, Champ decided to take on a new challenge for himself: as a pastry chef. “As a chef cooking in a traditional kitchen setting, I felt like you only use your instinct; aside from the big adrenaline rush, the environment is fairly stressful so I couldn’t be a detail-oriented person
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at all. I wanted to become a pastry chef so I could slow down, be more creative and prove to myself that I can be more precise,”
For Champ, creating each recipe takes time, almost like creating a masterpiece. “I travelled to France and sampled all of their pastries. Then there was a lot of trial and error, for 4 5 years, before I said OK, we’re ready to open up the shop,” he said. The initial idea for Patisserie Rosie was to create a new type of dessert experience for the Thai market. “A lot of Thais are really addicted to sweet avours, but they might not know it. Some people add sugar to everything! You see that pretty regularly, even on the street: people add tons of sugar to their noodle. And when you mention dessert, most people just think ‘sweet ‘but it can be more complex than that. At Patisserie Rosie, we try to balance all avours: sweet, sour, salty and sometimes bitter. This we combine with new techniques and, of course, beautiful presentation.”
TALK TO THE CHEF