Shaheen Peerbhai : The Interview with the Founder of Miel Bakery

She values the taste and quality of not only the finished pastries/viennoiseries and breads, but also the ingredients. However, her passion doesn’t only stay with baking – she is passionate in having the workshop to teach her recipes, as that’s how everything started! This interview shows the amazing story of Shaheen started from scripting to having a wonderful bakery and the workshops where she feels home.

Nice to meet you again, Shaheen! To start with, could you describe your everyday in Miel Bakery? How does your everyday look like?

It is hard to describe as an average day as everyday is different, but when I’m in the kitchen baking, I spend the whole day here from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and I love it! There is a lot of structure to my day as I have a big cycle and schedule to follow. So that’s the most straightforward I would say.

You come in at 6, you’re baking the bread, and then you know that in the mixer goes at 9.30 the bread for the next day. So it’s a very nice rhythm to the day when you’re baking, which I really love. So I think those are my best days when I’m in the kitchen.

And then there is the one which is about running the business, which is everywhere! You know, you have meetings, you go see people, or you have people come in, or you know, you want to fix some things, you want to innovate, you want to sort of carve time out to create some new recipes. So that is a very varied day, but a baked day is, you know, it’s set.

I’ve seen a couple of your other interviews before where you said that you bake continuously throughout the day you know the product’s still hot and you know, there’s enough to go around, so that’s pretty nice.

Exactly, exactly. You know, when you walk in there’s an oven upstairs which is literally on all day, and just as the cookie tray sells out, we’ll bake another, just as something sells out, we’ll bake another. So we want to make sure that it’s the freshest it possibly can be, and that was my point of having this bakery where I wanted to be able to eat different things I want to eat.

I want to bake what I want to eat. How do I do that? It has to be fresh and it has to be coming out of the oven. And that joy of something warm is just unparalleled, and it’s so simple and yet so hard to do. But when you do it, it’s amazing. It always tastes the best when it’s warm, isn’t it?

So, Shaheen you’re the founder and creator of Miel Bakery – what was your vision when you first created the business and what was your vision for the future?

Before I moved to London, I used to live in France, and living in France, you are spoilt for choice because you walk out of your apartment and then there are at least three bakeries to choose from. Where will I buy my bread from in London? Those are the decisions you just have to make. And when I moved to London, there was nothing like that and I would have to travel half an hour to get a good loaf of bread. It’s there, but it’s not as common place or as ingrained in the day-to-day of people’s lives as it is in France and I wanted that!

I was teaching, I had written a book, and for me, I really wanted to have one brick-and-mortar, my home, my playground where I can come, play with whatever ingredients I want, whatever tools and equipment I want to buy. And Miel has enabled me to do that, so I’m really pleased.

Just following from that, what would you say is your favourite recipe and the one that you go back to time and time?

So to make, I really enjoy making the Kouign amann. It’s the simplest dough and also the firmest. I love the tactile nature of it, I like working with that dough the most!

And Viennoiseries is what I’m super passionate about. Of course, we bake breads, we do patisserie, but for me, Viennoiseries is where my heart is. A chocolate chip cookie is my favourite thing to eat, especially when it’s out of the oven and the chocolate is melted and gooey. It’s like nostalgia, attached to the cookie.

What led you to become a baker and also a business owner?

Wanting to make things that I enjoy and I thought if I want to make it, I want to learn the right way of doing things and where will I learn? France! That’s the mecca of pastry and Viennoiseries and everything classical and that’s the style that I wanted to pursue.

So, then I applied for scholarships, which were really hard, but I’m really pleased that at the end of it, I managed to have all my education funded through those scholarships. That’s how I trained to be a baker and the business owner part of it was just sort of like a natural progression or something that I had in my mind with, with all of this learning and this knowledge of being able to do something.

I didn’t expect the bakery to be that popular or even to bake as much as I did then, that’s because I was teaching a lot before I opened the bakery. That’s why we do workshops at Miel Bakery, I thought it was going to be my main business, that I’m going to teach there and  would be baking on the weekends. But everything turned on its head and the bakery is really popular. It’s kept me so I barely have any time to teach!

That’s actually one of my questions, I know that you hold workshops in London, India and Paris, and they’re quite popular – what has made you start to hold those classes, what inspired you to start and what workshops?

So, I’ve been actually teaching for 10 years. When I lived in Bombay, I used to write a blog, (before Instagram and all of that) it was my way to document whatever I was baking, and over time a community formed. People asked, “would you be interested in teach what you blogged?” I said “Just go and copy the recipe and you’ll get the result…” But they insisted and encouraged me to teach them three or four recipes, whatever I wanted to teach, so I went “Let’s give it a shot!” It really caught on, and I have now taught a lot of classes for around 5-6 years in Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, India, and then a bit in Paris!

I realised how much I enjoyed teaching and enjoyed the process of forming set classes with repeat students. It was fun bringing something new to them each time, so I really enjoyed teaching!

That’s all really inspiring, I saw you had a collaboration / workshop space with the ceramic brand, Alice Guillaume Ceramics. Could you tell me more about that?

So that’s really cool, because I randomly discovered her stuff at a coffee shop, and I bought it, and then I reached out to her. I was like, “You know, we should do something!” And we just got on really well, and she did the Ceramic class first with the galette de rois, which were inserted inside each pastry, and we’ll get to them, they’re sliced, they’re clean, they’re clean for the day.

Oh, that’s amazing.

So that was fun, and so we did the ceramic workshop, where we did a pie class, and she did the pie dish, and we had the sort of students make pies, and then they could take the pie and the pie dish home, so that was a really fun class.

What would you say you would find your inspiration in New Ideas?

It’s very heavily rooted in my training, I love going back to Paris and trying things, and seeing what’s new, so I would say it’s sort of technique-wise very difficult, but ingredient and taste-wise, it’s things I want to eat. But it’s always circling back to, do I like eating this? And that’s actually what I teach my staff and even myself. If I would eat it myself, that’s when I’ll sell it. It’s important for me to make what I like, that’s the making part of it.

And then when it comes to my house servers, I tell them that try to see if I was on the counter, would you eat it? If it doesn’t look right, whether it’s not the right size, whether it’s a bit too brown, if you’re not going to eat it, do not let that sit there for another second. And the value I want to drive through the team is that we want to be able to bring joy to what we do. So if you’re going to eat it, it should definitely be there.

So, we met in at London Design Fair, what drew you to us? Field grey X readywear as a brand?

I just like to explore with garments outside of the norm, not the standard. I understand why the standard has become the standard, it’s because of proven use. But I also think that even that can be tweaked to look a bit smarter or use a more considered material or just something that you are excited to wear in the morning! Following from that, I think you’ve got really individual style.

What would you say is your daily uniform, or is there one?

I do have like a sort of very sectioned workwear and non-workwear. And for me, workwear just has to be comfortable. I usually wear trousers, and a shirt. And for my days off work there are LOTS of colours! Which you can see in the interiors at Miel as well.

So you’re currently working with an illustrator to be printed on new form – can you tell us a bit more about them and what drew you towards their style of work?

I discovered that illustrator when I bought a print of hers a few years ago. And I kept getting drawn to pastry prints and anything related to Paris or mostly pastry and bread and things like that. And when I saw her work, I really liked it.

And after, I also find myself when I look at art and things, I outgrow it, so I either like tuck it away or pass it along. But this one stuck with me three years and four years.

Her work is something is timeless, I just like the simplicity of it and yet the detail of it. Simplicity meaning, it’s literally black and white. It’s sort of a point drawing. But in that, in those points, you can see so much of texture. It’s a bit similar to workwear or your style, it’s quite timeless, those neutral colours for workwear. It’s quite interesting, it has to be timeless and go for five years.

The last question, do you have any future plans for, the next two years? Can you see Miel Bakery expanding at any point?

I really like being a baker. And so expansion means business and not baking. And I want to continue to enjoy baking. I want to create more things. I want to make sure my team is happy and everybody is doing things that they enjoy.

It’s about perfecting what’s good already. There’s always so many things and much to achieve. But now I know that I’m not in a rush to be anywhere, I just want to continue. I think that happened after I had my child. I want to enjoy that, I want to enjoy the baking. I want to enjoy the present, instead of constantly chasing the future.

More stories about them could be found on their website, as well as the workshops, exciting collaborations, menus and the timetable for the people who wants to get their baked love when it’s the warmest!