BAKERY REVIEW
I N T E R V I E W
Yesterday’s Lawyer, Today’s Star Chef! Pragati Mitta, Chief Chef at L’Opéra By Sharmila Chand
“Food de-stresses me,” says Pragati Mitta, a lawyer-turned-chef. Pragati did her undergraduate studies in history at St. Stephen’s College and got her law degree from Faculty of Law, Delhi University. After experiencing the Indian legal system for a couple of years her heart wasn’t in it anymore and she realised that her passion was elsewhere – in the culinary field. Pragati started cooking when she lived away from home for the first time during a summer internship in Egypt, and she hasn’t stopped since. To turn this passion into a profession and round out her culinary knowledge, she moved to New York City to study Pastry & Baking Arts at the Institute of Culinary Education. Apart from her diploma studies, she also took courses in wine, mixology and plated desserts. She frequently assisted chef-instructors in various pastry-related recreational courses they taught at the school. Pragati has also taken classes in the local cuisines while visiting Mexico and Italy. During her time in New York, Pragati got the opportunity to briefly experience working in Michelin Star restaurants. She went on to do an internship at Chanson, a French Patisserie/Dessert Bar in Manhattan. After returning to India, she worked for the Olive Group of Restaurants before joining L’Opéra as a Chef and the Quality Manager. At L’Opéra she works on various projects including R&D for new menus, training chefs, conducting audits and assisting with marketing. She fulfils her love for cooking and baking with meticulous perfection. “What can be more satisfying than creating gastronomic masterpieces every day,” she says with a smile. In an exclusive conversation, she talks about her idols, secret mantra, hot trends and more... 30
What are the current hot trends in Indian Bakery industry? Due to the home-baking trend of dabbling in sourdough in the lockdown (caused by the shortage of or inability to obtain storebought yeast), the overall appreciation for and consumption of sourdough breads seems to have skyrocketed. Additionally, as an effect of lockdown fatigue and being unable to actually travel and have new experiences, people are more open than ever to experiment with baked goods they’ve never tasted or even heard of before. Therefore, bakeries providing unique products and novel experiences are experiencing an uptick in business.
How did you become a Pastry Chef? I started dabbling in baking in my adolescence, but in my adulthood for pragmatic reasons I got deeper into cooking. Therefore, while my skills and knowledge of cooking kept improving, I felt like my baking skills had remained stagnant. Thus, when I took the decision to become a chef, in order to have well-rounded skills and work on what I felt I was deficient in, I decided to study pastry rather than the standard culinary course.
Dec-Jan ’21
