Taquet's gelatos include celery and Irish sourdough bread [Photo: Verko Ignjatovic/ITP Images]. Taquet's gelatos include celery and Irish sourdough bread [Photo: Verko Ignjatovic/ITP Images].

Dubai-based The Taste Initiative head chef Mark Taquet discusses how he bakes bread from scratch, whips up quirky gelato flavours, and stays sustainable in a LEED-certified environment

The Taste Initiative opened a bakery; was this something that had already been planned?
It was always on the cards. When we opened the café over a year ago, the space was there for the bakery. And with the LEED certification within the building, it took long, long hours’ thought process into bringing the correct equipment in.

Did the equipment pose a challenge bearing in mind the building’s LEED Platinum status?
It did. There were a number of things we had to consider from the point of view of equipment. In Dubai it was very difficult to find the correct equipment so we had to outsource things.
We had some equipment that we brought from Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy. Shipping equipment in doesn’t help with the carbon footprint but because we had to get stuff from Europe we had to make sure that it was as energy-efficient as possible.

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For example, generally we found other ovens would take around three litres of water to put the steam inside whereas the one we have right now is only 300ml. And while we do have some modern equipment, we try to make our breads as naturally as possible.

We let the natural process take place rather than helping that along with the aid of machinery. You can taste it in the breads we do, it’s a lot lighter, it’s not as doughy, it’s very crispy.

By handling the dough as little as possible and letting it come to where it needs to be in its natural state and then baking it is very different to what everyone else is doing in Dubai.

And then there’s the gelateria as well?
The gelateria is where we are making a lot of our own gelatos. One of the reasons was: coming from Europe, I wanted to try and bring a range of ice creams which you can’t find here. We have some interesting flavours there — I’ve actually done an Irish sourdough bread ice cream, we have a raisin ice cream, and celery!

At the moment we’re experimenting with different flavours and different techniques. Everything is coming together with the bakery and the gelateria. It’s moving forward and I’m hoping everyone is enjoying what we’re doing here.

What were you doing before The Taste Initiative?
I have been in Dubai four years now and I was the head chef at the Aviation Club in Garhoud before The Taste Initiative. When I was there, I was very busy and you are limited to what you could create. Whereas when I came here, you can see that this is growing every month. It’s much more of a challenge here.

Would you say that you currently have your dream kitchen?
It’s pretty close to my dream kitchen! What I like about the kitchen is that it’s nice and compact. I’m not running from one end of the kitchen to the other when it’s busy. Some of the kitchens that I have worked in previously ... it’s hard to get to things you want, but in here it’s been organised correctly and it’s functional, which is great to have when it’s busy.

What’s your favourite item on the menu?
I like the angel-hair pasta and the prawns at the moment because I’m trying to diet! But the pan-fried sheri is really good, as well as the tuna.

Can you tell us whether you’re doing anything sustainable with your fish sourcing?
Yes, we use farmed tuna from the Philippines. With tuna being over-fished, the next choice was to get something farmed.

But we made sure the farms that we are using have proper procedures in place for the feed they use and other considerations. The sheri that I am using is in abundance here in Dubai. We took all these things into consideration when we put the fish on the menu.

Is there any other way The Taste Initiative is working regionally with local producers?
In Dubai it is a little bit of a challenge to get stuff in. One of the issues I have here is to lessen the carbon footprint, so I’m getting my stuff as locally as I can, which is fine. But sometimes we also need to try and keep the dish authentic, so if I use a different product, the dish loses its meaning and depth.

At the moment, there are lots of products that we can get here. We’re bringing in a range of cheeses that are produced in Sharjah — Italian Dairy Products. We try to source a lot of things as much as possible from Oman and we work with different companies around here, during the season of specific ingredients.