5 MINUTES WITH ... // Samantha Levett
Samantha Levett The ex-Momofuku Seiobo pastry chef on exiting fine dining and launching her Instagram bakery Cream.
CREAM STARTED DURING lockdown
Momofuku Seiobo or Sokyo. But a large
my partner and I had originally planned
have found me through some degree of
last year. Momofuku Seiobo closed, and
to go away for a few weeks, but obviously
that got cancelled. I didn’t do anything for two or three weeks and I was like, ‘Ok,
I’m kind of done being on holidays, I need something to do’.
I put up a post on Instagram saying, ‘I’ve
been baking a lot at home if anybody would like a box of stuff to eat, you’re more than
welcome to donate whatever you think it’s worth’. I had another friend who was also bored during lockdown, and she asked,
we have vanilla, raspberry, lemon curd,
separation on Instagram or through media.
(that one’s really good). At the beginning,
My style is a little bit abstract; I’m mostly inspired by art and fashion. It’s become a cool creative outlet for me
‘What’s the name of your bakery? We should
because people have allowed me to design
Cream and she created the stickers. It kind
My style is a little bit abstract; I’m mostly
make stickers’. We came up with the name of exploded from there. People started messaging me and I just kept going.
Twenty per cent of my clientele are my
friends and people who know me from 58 | Hospitality
The flavours I’m working with are stable;
majority of them are random people who
the exterior of their cake however I want.
lemon myrtle and Davidson plum curd
I had a large selection, but what I’ve found is that it’s easier to choose from a very
small list. There are 10 different types of cakes and 10 fillings.
In terms of making people’s celebration
cakes, inconsistency is something that can
be really disappointing. If someone takes a cake to somebody’s house and that person wants to order a cake and it isn’t as good,
it’s disappointing. When your customer has
an expectation, you really want to meet that and make their whole experience good.
The thing I’ve taken away from working
inspired by art and fashion. I went to see
in fine dining is the importance of
opened, and three days later I made a cake
once, but it’s challenging to do it a hundred
the [Henri] Matisse exhibition when it first
that was heavily inspired by the exhibition.
consistency. It’s really easy to do something times and be exactly the same. ■
