Top row (L-R): chef Manish Gajra and head chef Sumantha Roy. Bottom row (L-R): sous chef Sandesh Bodke, Andre Gerschel, and pastry chef Aaliyah Randeree.
One of the first tenants to move into Dubai’s Souk Al Bahar, a shopping and dining destination next to the Burj Khalifa, closed its doors this summer for renovations. Rather than just closing for a quick spruce-up however, Baker & Spice spent the three months completely reburbishing its flagship organic brasserie and building a large open kitchen that is the proud focal point of the outlet — and came at the expense of space in the dining room, Caterer Middle East learns.
“Most people would say that spending extra money to lose seats in the restaurant business is not advised, but for us, we don’t always take the safe choice financially,” explains Baker & Spice country manager Andre Gerschel.
Speaking about the motivations behind the new kitchen, he states: “We spent money on the things that matter during the renovation. We expanded our kitchen triple-fold and you can see into it from all angles. I think it says something very strong when you are willing to put it all on display like that.”
Continuing, he adds: “We haven’t hired any staff — we have exactly the same number of people — and we have the same philosophy; we have just focused on the physical equipment that allows us to put more money on the plate than we had before — and this is an important part of our ethos.”
Gerschel, who is from New York and went to culinary school in the US, elaborates on what he means by this: “I’m a customer of many restaurants; I love eating out and I think it’s extremely important as an operator to eat out a tonne. I know when I’m at a restaurant that puts the money on the plate — when they really put love and care into making the food, and the ingredients required to make it.
“We don’t buy food, we buy ingredients — that means that absolutely everything is home-made and hand-made from scratch, every single day. We make our own yoghurt and our own bread, for example, and [to do this] we have a huge team for a relatively humble restaurant. It is labour intensive, and there is always somebody here on-site, but we do this because we want to be in control of the whole process and make sure that we’re putting the money on the plate for our customers.”
Gerschel’s approach echoes the outlook of Baker & Spice founder Yael Mejia, who is often described as someone who changed the way in which people ate in Dubai. When she unveiled the concept in 2009, not only was Baker & Spice situated outside of a hotel, but it was serving organic dishes, using locally source produce — virtually unheard of at that time.
“Her entire philosophy about the way that the restaurant business should aspire to be run was very different. One of the first things that seemed crazy was we never had Coca Cola on the menu — eight years ago that was something very different. When she opened this business the words ‘locally sourced’ and ‘organic’ didn’t exist. The fact that we have Starbucks and McDonald’s trying to use those words now is great — I hope they adopt the philosophies — and it’s interesting to see the transition.
“Nowadays it has become more commonplace to use the words that we started off using in the beginning, such as organic, local, fresh and homemade. These were the four pillars we started with and applied to everything from a cup of coffee to a main course. In a lot of ways, the company has been inspiring to me personally.”
Formerly of Okku and Jumeirah Restaurant Group, Gerschel took over the company reins from Mejia about eight months ago and says when he first met her, Mejia told him her “culinary fingerprints can be seen all over the world”.
Continuing, he shares: “That’s an insane sentence to hear. I liken it to the tennis example all the time — what would you do if you found out that everyone from Andre Agassi to Roger Federer to Rafael Nadal to Pete Sampras to Michael Chang to Novak Djokovic, for years, had all worked with the same coach and nobody knew who it was? That’s her. She’s founded a legacy and a dynasty of excellent chefs all over the world, who have worked for her and gone on to do exceptional things.”
Over time, Baker & Spice, as a brand, has evolved to encompass a bunch of identities. Besides its café identity and new look à la carte restaurant, it operates a shop in Manzil — opposite Souk Al Bahar — which Gerschel refers to as “an extension of everyone’s fridge”, joking that Baker & Spice has been been “feeding the pregnant women of Dubai for eight years”.
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