The Baker's In!

With a group of colleagues, we went to Bakerzin's kitchen at Harper's Road for a staff learning journey. I must say that this is one of the best and most enriching LJs I have been to so far. Chef Daniel is such a humble and down to earth character. Through an interactive dialogue session, we got to know more of his background and philosophy. His story is one of passion, determination and grit. Chef Daniel was trained as a pastry chef in France and upon his return, he worked and experimented at his father's bakery. However, the venture eventually failed and almost bankrupted him. Nevertheless, he did not give up. He went out looking for a job and continued baking at home and selling his cakes to close friends and family. When he had amassed enough savings, he started Bakerzin and the rest is history. After a good 45 mins of Q&A, we proceeded to visit the kitchen where food and cakes are prepared before they are sent to the outlets.

Before we went into the kitchen, we had to dressed and sanitized ourselves as it is afterall a F&B establishment. The group of us were clowning around while waiting for our colleagues to be ready for the tour of the kitchen.

And even though they are not the glitzy, glamourous bakers and chefs we see on TV, the staff at Bakerzin's kitchen really showed pride in her work. I was particularly impressed when I saw this lady here hard at work, concentrating on perfecting the 3D flowers she had to make for the 3D cake ordered by a customer. We were told that it takes about 2 years of training for her to be this good.

Besides the kitchen, we also got to visit the store of Bakerzin where they store all their imported materials. For those who do not know, most of the material used by Bakerzin are imported from Europe and Chef Daniel assured us that there is absolutely no compromise on the materials they use. There is also zero preservatives added to their cakes. Everything is made with the best and the freshest of all ingredients. It is no wonder that their food cost is so high.

At the 4th level, we saw a group of staff working on the macarrons. And we even get to taste freshly made macarrons. It tasted better than the ones they sell at their outlets. Most of the staff at the kitchen are from mainland China and the reason for this, as Chef Daniel says, is the difficulty of hiring locals. Many disdain jobs in the kitchen and only the foreigners are willing to take on such jobs. And after the tour of the kitchen was completed, we were treated to delectable pastries and cakes, all from Bakerzin's kitchen. There was so much food that we had to doggy-bagged them home.