Pooja Dhingra, 28, is the owner of three macaroon shops in Mumbai. She is planning to set up three more shops this year and has plans to expand her business, Le 15 Patisserie, across India
Pooja Dhingra, 28, is the owner of three macaroon shops in Mumbai. She is planning to set up three more shops this year and has plans to expand her business, Le 15 Patisserie, across India. She talks about how she fell in love with the small, colourful circular cake made from ground almonds and filled with cream or icing.
Dhingra was studying law at Mumbai University. Then she realised that it was not her calling and wanted to do something more creative and decided to quit study. She convinced her parents to let her go to Switzerland to study hospitality and management. After three years at a Swiss catering college, Dhingra did one year at the well-known Le Cordon Bleu school in Paris. In 2008, while she was studying to be a pastry chef, one day her friends took her to one of the best macaroon shops in Paris. After tasting it, she has taken a decision to open her own macaroon store in Mumbai.
After graduation she returned to Mumbai and started making her own Macaroon recipe at her mother's kitchen. It was not smooth sailing initially for the young Dhingra. With the Mumbai weather being hotter and more humid than Paris, she struggled for half a year, as the heat and humidity makes it difficult to make the delicate cake. It took her around six months of research and 60 failed recipes to finally get something right. When she finally had a recipe, her businessman father agreed to invest the initial funds she required to set up the business.
Yet being both young and female meant she faced additional challenges. The biggest problem was to get people to take her seriously.. "For example, if I had to sign a lease for a place, or buy machinery, I would have to ask my father to make these calls for me." Dhingra also found it difficult to deal with Indian red tape. "My education in Switzerland, and working in hotels there, gave me a good idea of what working in hospitality would be like, but dealing with the bureaucracy is extremely difficult when starting a business in India." She now employs 40 people across one central kitchen and three shops.
