PASTRIES WITH PURPOSE

San Marino resident Monique Chan is a Michelin star pastry chef who has trained and worked at top restaurants in Paris and California.

MICHELIN STAR PASTRY CHEF MONIQUE CHAN IS FUNDRAISING FOR BLACK LIVES MATTER ORGANIZATIONS

BY KAMALA KIRK

Just a few days after Monique Chan arrived in Australia last February, COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic and the country’s borders closed. She was there on a work visa and planned to spend the next few months working as a pastry chef at Rollers Bakehouse, a popular bakery in northern Sydney.

“I had been following Rollers Bakehouse since they opened and reached out to them about a working holiday,” Chan says.

“I was there for about four months, and the experience was truly singular. At Rollers, we were incredibly blessed in the sense that the pandemic caused business to boom. In response to dine-in restrictions, people were suddenly looking for a snack that could be eaten on the go or transported as easily to the beach as to home. Soon we were selling out of croissants daily, even though we had more than doubled the amount of croissants we were producing. I’m really happy to have contributed to a historic period of time for the bakehouse; we were setting records for revenue almost every weekend. The other team members and I definitely forged a unique bond and made some unforgettable memories together during that time.”

This wasn’t Chan’s first stint abroad, however. The San Marino native spent her junior year of college in Rome, where she had a three-month internship at a local bakery. In 2013, she moved to Paris and attended École Grégoire-Ferrandi Pastry School, where she was valedictorian of her graduating class.

After graduating, Chan worked under chef Yann Couvreur at Prince de Galles, a five-star hotel in Paris, and renowned pastry chef Laurent Jeannin at Le Bristol Paris, a palace hotel rated higher than five stars. She has also worked at The French Laundry, a three Michelin star restaurant in Napa Valley, as well as with Cronut creator Dominique Ansel at his bakery in LA.

In 2018, Chan moved to Hong Kong, where she worked as executive pastry chef at Écriture, a French fine dining restaurant that received two Michelin stars within seven months. When she returned to LA the following year, Chan launched her Chez Momo Instagram account and YouTube channel, where she regularly shares tutorials and behind-the-scenes footage of baked goods that she makes for private events and special occasions.

“I had spent the majority of my career in fine dining, always yearning to innovate, to create something different and cutting edge,” Chan points out. “After the onset of the pandemic, I found myself gravitating towards baking homier things, like cookies, cinnamon rolls and carrot cake, a return to the comforts of childhood nostalgia. Talking to people in my social media communities, I realized others felt similarly, and I wanted to continue providing recipes for them to make at home while being mindful of their energy levels and changing circumstances. I geared my tutorials to be much simpler than they were in the past. After working at home all day and possibly managing other family members’ at-home school and work lives, no one is in the mood to make a 30step dessert.”

While she was in Australia, Chan became inspired by Bakers Against Racism, a movement that united bakers across the world in a massive bake sale last summer to raise funds for Black Lives Matter. As soon as she returned home, Chan launched her Chez Momo wedding cake line and started donating a percentage of her proceeds to BLM organizations.

“The pandemic’s disruption of the wedding industry has certainly made it an interesting time to be a wedding cake designer,” Chan says. “Some weddings have been postponed multiple times, while other microweddings have popped up in response to restrictions. I had been making donations from wedding cake sales prior, but my official fundraiser began in December after stay-at-home restrictions canceled or postponed some of the weddings I had been booked to make cakes for.”

Chan is fundraising for BLM organizations with a bake-at-home cinnamon roll kit. It costs $42 and comes with frozen rolls, cream cheese frosting and an assortment of glittery sprinkles. A portion of the proceeds from cinnamon roll kit sales will be donated. The sale will go through at least the summer, although Chan is hoping to keep the fundraiser running for as long as possible. In March, she plans to change the product to a lighter pastry for the spring season.

“Though I was fortunate as an Asian American to be raised in a diverse city such as

Inspired by Bakers Against Racism, Monique Chan began offering a bakeat-home cinnamon roll kit for $42 to raise funds for Black Lives Matter organizations.

Los Angeles, I grew up cognizant of racial inequality nonetheless and realized in my adult years living and working abroad in different countries that discrimination is sadly one of the few universal constants,” Chan says.

“If age has taught me anything, it’s the danger in not sharing your voice and not acting when you have the opportunity to make the world better. I wanted to make sure I was speaking up and seizing the opportunity to contribute everything I could.”

Aside from cinnamon rolls, Chan’s signature pastries include her swirled fruit tarts and rosette apple tarts. These days she has been experimenting in the kitchen with different types of cakes, such as carrot and coffee, as well as monkey bread, pies and croissants. She also enjoys putting her own unique spin on pastries she makes, such as Funfetti croissants and purple sweet potato pie.

“What I love most is giving someone a dessert and seeing their face light up,” Chan shares. “That happiness is like rocket fuel to me; bringing others joy through food is what gives me purpose and is where I find my ultimate joy. Baking has provided me with communities that have been second families and a home away from home; I’ve found lifelong friends in professional kitchens. I consider pastry to be a form of art, and art has always been therapeutic for me. I put on music and use that time to process my thoughts while rolling out dough or decorating a cake.”

Chan recently finished submitting her applications for several MBA programs at top schools across the country. She hopes to develop and refine her business skills in order to open a physical location for her Chez Momo business, which she plans to do after graduation.

“I absolutely love the culinary industry, but it is notoriously difficult,” Chan says. “Many of my peers question a sustainable future in physically demanding kitchens that do not compensate commensurately, and being a female chef in a historically male-dominated field comes with its own set of challenges. Pure passion enabled me to push through the less glamorous aspects for time, but I inevitably grew incensed to change the industry for good.”

Chan’s mission is to establish a business model that relentlessly promotes the well-being of its employees, empowers underrepresented groups and contributes to the community. Her goal is to run a bakery that offers above-industry pay, advocates for women and minorities in leadership roles and is grounded in social impact, providing training for disadvantaged individuals and repurposing excess food into meals that minimize waste and target food insecurity.

“In the long term, I hope that this bakery will set a new paradigm for the culinary industry, driving progress in kitchen culture, working conditions, and gender and race equality,” Chan says. “Though I may be the first Asian American female to reach certain markers of achievement in the industry, I certainly don’t plan on being the last.”

For more information, visit therealchezmomo.com and follow @therealchezmomo on Instagram.