Chef Magazine for Thailand December/January | Page 48

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, flavours always come
first,” 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 flavours, 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 flavours: sweet,
sour, salty and sometimes bitter. This we combine with
new techniques and, of course, beautiful presentation.”