When international celebrity chefs Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert and Gordon Ramsay were (they still do) making waves in the culinary world, there was an unassuming Indian in their midst gaining knowledge, training and experience. “And, I was not even aware of their celebrity status,” says Durairajan Lakshmanan, “till my wife saw them on TV and sent their pictures to me!”
Chef Durairajan Lakshmanan Photo: S. James
When Lakshmanan approached the world’s top chef Eric Ripert (who is also the co-owner of the famed Le Bernardin Restaurant in New York City) and Anthony Bourdain, one of the most influential chefs known for his TV presentations and culinary adventures, for a photograph, both were surprised. “In all humility they told me we are equal colleagues, why do you need photographs with us!”
Fresh fruit cake baked by Chef Durairajan Lakshmanan. Photo: S. James
Inside or outside the kitchen, it always was a culinary education for him that kept him going for 35 years away from home. “In this industry, you just keep learning and the top chefs simply inspire and captivate,” says Lakshmanan who quit his job as the chief baker in the pre-opening team of the super luxury Hotel Ritz- Carlton in Grand Cayman Island in the summer of 2012 after working there for seven years with the celebrity chefs.
Chef Durairajan Lakshmanan with chef Eric Ripert. Photo: Special Arrangement
The veil of secrecy around guests and chefs in hotels like the Ritz Carlton, the elements of good food and the best of ingredients imported from all over the globe, the nature and spirit of being a professional, the passion and attention to detail – all collectively made him an expert on the fundamentals of his adopted profession. “The best way I have always known to experience life,” he declares, “is baking.”
Chef Durairajan Lakshmanan with chef Antony Bourdain.
His love of food was kindled because he wanted to escape the zoology course his father forced him to take in Madurai. He left home to attend a crafts course in bakery and confectionary at the Institute of Hotel Management & Catering Technology, Chennai, and at the age of 20 started his career as bakery chef at Pandiyan Hotel in Madurai and moved on to Fisherman’s Cove, Taj. But he remains ever grateful to Hot Breads Mahadevan who understood Lakhsmanan’s passion for baking and sent him to Malaysia for an advanced course. The boy never returned!
“Baking is not just another culinary endeavour. It requires passion and patience of a different kind,” he says and adds, “Excellence in the traditional and innovation that fills the treat with a joyous taste and brings a smile on every face helps a baker to stand apart.”.
Chef Durairajan Lakshmanan. Photo: S. James
Throughout his career he put in rigorous hours at The Oberois in Kuala Lumpur, and as chief baker of pre-opening teams in Hotel Ankara Towers, Almaty, Kazakhstan, Holiday Island, Dhonakulhi Island Hideaway Spa Resort, Kanahura Beach and Spa Resort and the Le Meridien in Maldives among several others. “I was always surrounded by talented chefs at all these super luxury properties,” he says and that helped him to expand his repertoire of recipes. “Kitchens are always hurried, harried and sweaty but when you end a long shift with no complaints from customers, you feel you have arrived,” points out Lakshmanan who is a goldmine of stories related to his experience of feeding several high profile guests from Hollywood, members of royal families, politicians and sportspersons.
Food is all about feelings and emotions, says Lakshmanan and since he was doing something he had passion for, he effortlessly learnt to make countless varieties of breads and croissants, muffins and doughnuts, brioche and baguette, pizzas, pasta, cakes and more. His was a typical case of his reputation preceding him in Temple town. At quite a few get-togethers one had the privilege of tasting breads and cakes baked by him and each time the enquiry led to the same address.
On the day of our appointment, he was waiting, all relaxed, a reflection of the man himself. “Oh, he is calm after he finishes cooking and is satisfied with what he has made but while working in the kitchen he is a terror,” quips his wife Anitha. “I am a perfectionist and intolerant to anything that is unclean and unhygienic,” adds Lakshmanan welcoming us into his spick and span kitchen where he had just baked three 550 gms each loaves of roast garlic-black pepper, olive-rosemary-mustard seed and multigrain bread besides almond-choco cup cakes, a superbly colourful five layered cake made with fresh passion fruit, blue berry, banana, cherry and cream.
“I take special and small orders from friends and acquaintances, and invariably end up making extra which is then distributed among other friends,” says Lakshmanan, revealing his marketing by word of mouth and dollops of taste. He does not want to go commercial or large scale because he wants to do everything himself. And yet, this Christmas he ended up baking 60 kilos of plum cake single-handedly.
Even as we talk, he whips up a super-soft, mouth melting, cheesy veg pizza for us and his daughter says though the family loves his cooking but having a professional chef in the family deprives them of eating out! She has forced him to at least have a name for his products. And so Baker’s Loft it is, which not only sells its own recipes but can make you any special bread, buns or burgers of your choice and every kind of bakery products.
“Timing is so key when it comes to baking,” says Lakshmanan, when asked about the secret to the superior taste of his products. He also adds the availability of ingredients in temple town is much greater now and it helps to make super good simple food. But, he asserts, it is intuition with food that betters all the training in the world.
Though still not known to many, Lakshmanan has silently established himself as one of Madurai’s great pastry chefs. “There is no pressure or action in my kitchen now but what remains is the intense focus and uncompromising standards,” he asserts.
I ask him what he loves to eat himself. “Spicy chicken curry,” he smiles promptly. And because Malaysia gave him the first job, he is in love with Malaysian cuisine. And away from the kitchen what is his obsession. “I have a green thumb,” he says and leads us to his terrace garden where he organically grows roses from London, passion fruit from Belgium and a host of other fruits and vegetables.
Indian cuisine is popular worldwide, says Lakshmanan, but bakers just need an excuse to heat up their ovens. “You celebrate birthday to holiday with a chocolate brownie or a cake and that will never go out of fashion.”
