What makes a great dessert? For Angela Lai – recently voted Asia’s Best Pastry Chef as part of the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants awards programme – it’s a combination of flavour, texture and story. Discover what makes her creations worthy of such accolades as she opens up about her career, philosophy and inspiration
“If you’re someone who doesn’t really like sweets, you should really try what I’m doing,” begins Angela Lai, the pastry chef of Taiwanese-French restaurant Taïrroir in Taipei, Taiwan. “To me, desserts are not supposed just to be sweet – they have to have balance and feel comfortable to give you that ‘perfect ending’ feeling,” she says of the sought-after creations that led the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants voters to bestow on her the honour of Asia’s Best Pastry Chef 2021.
Since Lai joined Taïrroir in 2016 at the invitation of chef Kai Ho, she has become a key player at the restaurant and within the country’s gastronomic scene, her star quickly rising. But for the Singaporean, the path to the culinary arts took a few twists and turns.
Lai's sweet potato dessert with salted duck egg ice cream and oolong congee
“My mum loved baking so when I was young, I used to hang around the kitchen with her all the time,” she says. “That’s when I actually fell in love with pastry. Her fruit tarts and cream puffs are still some of my favourite desserts. But in [Chinese] society, being a chef isn’t glamorised.”
Instead of enrolling in culinary school, Lai went into hospitality management and worked for two years as a sales coordinator at the Swissôtel in Singapore. However, she never felt that she belonged there, and it was when she enrolled in a pastry and baking arts diploma that she discovered a new world: one where behind each dessert there is a story, well-researched chemistry and myriad small details that make the difference between ordinary and extraordinary creations.
The second important revelation in Lai’s life came from her post-culinary school experiences, when she worked variously in restaurants, hotels and cafés in the city-state. “I like the kind of stress, the rush, the fact that you have to work on your feet and the unexpected things that happen in a restaurant kitchen,” she recalls. “I realised that’s where I wanted to be.”
Taïrroir's dining room in Taipei
Her experiences took her to the now-shuttered three Michelin-starred restaurant Guy Savoy at Marina Bay Sands, where Lai was pastry commis while her future head chef Ho worked on the garde manger station. Ho eventually moved back to Taiwan to open his own place, and it was while visiting him in Taipei that Lai joked he should hire her as pastry chef – a couple of months later, that suggestion became a reality.
Over her five years in Taiwan working with Ho, Lai has fully embraced Taïrroir’s philosophy of deconstructing Taiwanese cuisine, integrating French techniques and infusing a global spirit into classic recipes. Discovering the country’s indigenous produce, learning more about its culture and researching traditional desserts have all been part of her experience, leading to new creations she now considers her signatures.
One example is Lai’s Pong Pia dessert. The inspiration came from a traditional Taiwanese recipe for a sugar pastry that swells up during baking, becoming a hollow puff with a creamy filling at the bottom. “We started experimenting with this pastry and I decided to cut out the bottom, where all the brown sugar is, and dehydrate it,” says Lai. The dehydrated sugar became part of a new filling to be placed under the pastry’s hollow cover, with bubble tea pearls and Madong chocolate crémeux [a custard-based ganache].
The Pong Pia's pastry bears Taïrroir’s Chinese characters
But the final touch – the story – came from a Taïrroir colleague working in the front of house team. “She shared with me that a long time ago, they used to make pong pia for women who had just given birth. To restore their strength, they fried the pastry with an egg and sesame oil. So, to finish the dessert, I paired it with a sesame oil ice cream and a little bit of ginger ice,” explains Lai.
With savoury notes from the sesame oil and smoky flavours from the Madong chocolate crémeux, as well as a variety of textures from the crunchy pastry to the creamy filling, Lai’s Pong Pia ticks all the boxes of what she would call a ‘perfect ending’. And most of all, it has a story – which the pastry chef says can be the final push for a diner to try a more adventurous flavour combination in a dessert, such as those she likes to work with.
For Lai, it’s ultimately all about giving the right importance to the final step of the restaurant experience. “When I worked in Singapore, sometimes restaurants neglected pastry and desserts – but that’s actually the last impression of the meal,” she says. “With Kai [Ho], we try to make the whole meal memorable. So the dessert also has to be perfect – not too big, not too heavy, just enjoyable.”
Pineapple cake with camellia oil sablé, pineapple sorbet and a rum and raisin curd
Having won the ultimate accolade for a pastry chef in Asia, Lai is ready to debut on the world culinary stage. “This whole thing really caught me off guard, I’m still shocked,” she admits. “The award means a lot to me, especially during this global pandemic, and I’m truly honoured. Receiving it is like telling me and my team that everything we’re doing, our perseverance – it’s all worth it. Now I look forward to sharing with and learning from people all around the world.”
'50/50 is the new 50’ is a content series created by 50 Best and supported by S.Pellegrino with the shared aim of promoting equality, inclusivity and balance in the hospitality sector and beyond.
The list of Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2021, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, was announced on 25th March , via a virtual awards ceremony – visit the website to discover all the winners. To stay up to date with the latest news, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
