From Paris to Delhi: How Sahil Mehta built a French patisserie empire | Eye News

Although he feeds us his signature almond croissants, a silken, mousse-like basque cheesecake, mille-feuille and a pistachio tart, what he decides to cook for himself — and for this piece — is something that’s miles away from this dessert spread: 100 grams of steamed rice, 200 grams of marinated chicken breast, with veggies like edamame, snow peas and bell peppers.

“I can’t live without sugar,” he says, as if confessing. “The only reason I train so intensely is because I need two cups of coffee every day and with that, something sweet — a pastry, a cookie.” He follows intermittent fasting, 18 to 20 hours daily, eating within a four- to six-hour window. This is his main meal for the day. day.

Growing up in Delhi

Mehta grew up in Delhi until he was 13, at which point his parents divorced, his mother remarried and moved to Paris. His father stayed. The arrangement was clear: every summer and winter vacation, he came back to visit. And so he grew up between two cities, two kitchens, two entirely different ideas of what eating could mean.

In Delhi, his school canteen sold samosas and aloo patty burgers. In Paris, lunch had the structure of a seven-course meal — salad, entree, main, cheese, yoghurt, dessert and a break for chocolate or coffee. “It was a big, big change. That’s where my liking for food really developed.” His mother, a businesswoman, would host regularly — food nights, ghazal nights, folk nights. There was also a steady rhythm of Delhi’s Indian diplomatic community gathering and eating in Paris. Mehta would manage the bar, set the tables and, most importantly, observe.

When school ended, he saw a notice about culinary training and signed up. At the back of his mind was Bollywood. He had grown up watching Hindi films and he harboured a quiet dream that there was some acting in him. But he never had the courage to say so. So he joined Santos Dumont, a culinary school in France instead, arriving on the first day in a brown leather jacket, torn jeans, long hair, a stud in his ear. His dean looked at him and was surprised he had gotten through. “I told him that I am going to India to meet my father and he said when you return, make sure that the hair is shorter, the earrings are off and we wear trousers here, not jeans,” laughs Mehta.

A mousse-like basque cheesecake, mille-feuille and a pistachio tart (Photo: Gajendra Yadav)

He became, unexpectedly in his own words, an excellent student. The internships that followed were at Le Bristol, the Ritz, Hotel Baltimore, UNESCO, the Travellers Club at the Champs-Élysées, where members included Jean Paul Gaultier and Dior designers and government ministers. French culinary training in that era, he shares, was unsparing. “Internships were hard. We would be asked to do push-ups for messing up a recipe, not 10 or 15 but till our chest or arms would hurt. Sometimes chefs would literally box us. We would be quizzed, and if we got an answer wrong, a knife might come flying our way or they would kick us with their steel-toe shoes. But I’m glad it happened, that’s what made me,” he says.

Four years later, in the year 2000, when he graduated, his mother was ready to send him to Cornell or Lausanne for a master’s in hospitality. Instead, he told her he wanted to go to Mumbai to be an actor. Her response, delivered before she walked out of the room, was: “If your nana were alive, he would have shot you.”

A bad French cake that changed his course

He came anyway, on vacation, in 2000. A photographer spotted him in South Extension, offered a photoshoot, and within weeks he had ads for Atlas Cycles, Kama Sutra’s capsule range and Femina. “I thought my life was set, I am the next Shah Rukh Khan.” He refused to go back when the vacation ended. He did an acting course, a Doordarshan series and a Zee TV serial. “Then I started losing my hair, which wasn’t quite the trend.” He never made it to Mumbai.

Instead, he opened a small takeaway kitchen in GK2 in 2003 called Sahil’s Kitchen , which served Indian food, which he admits he knew little about. It did well for a year-and-a-half, then plateaued. He tried exports. Lost money in the recession.

The turn came in 2007. He went to a five-star hotel in Delhi to buy a birthday cake for his then girlfriend; the hotel had just launched a French patisserie. He bought what they called a French cake, but when he tasted it, it was a disappointment. “That moment changed everything. I realised something was missing in the city.”

He decided to go back to Paris to study at Lenôtre School of Culinary Arts. His mother was baffled, his stepfather asked him to give them one good reason to support him. Mehta spent three months visiting every bakery in Delhi and then called his mother and stepfather: “You have been diplomats here, over a hundred embassies, where are the croissants? You get a bread roll in the name of a croissant.” That argument worked. In 2008, he went back to France and completed a crash master’s at Lenôtre, which he describes as the Harvard of bakery schools.

He returned, found French investors wanting to open a tearoom, and redirected them toward a bakery. “That became L’Opéra. I joined as project manager, was promoted, and left after almost two years.” A partnership followed, then solo consulting — the Oberoi, The Imperial, the Hyatt, Bikanervala, Hot Breads & More. Dessert tables for the Ambanis, the Bachchans, the Reddys, Nagarjuna. “We would create full displays — macaron tarts, sculpted breads, hot chocolate stations. Very French. Very new for India in 2010-11.”

In 2019, his wife Surbhi Mehta suggested turning a spare room into a bakery. He agreed, on one condition — the best equipment, the best ingredients. Then COVID hit. The team went home. He slipped into routine until his mother nudged him back. “We started small — croissants, quiches, cookies, cakes under Paris My Love, which we had already registered. Word of mouth spread.” Soon, they moved into a 2,200 sq ft facility in Saidulajab, Saket.

It’s about 2 pm at his house in Shivalik, near Panchsheel Park, and Mehta needs to finish eating his food in the four-hour window. Back in the kitchen, he measures everything. Fifteen grams of butter, precisely. The chicken, marinated overnight in Greek yoghurt, tikka masala, and ginger-garlic, is cooked for 10 minutes. In another pan, very little butter, one clove of garlic, the vegetables sautéed and kept deliberately crunchy. The rice goes in last.

He eats in the living room, surrounded by antique paintings and sculpture his mother has collected over years. The conversation turns to quality — French essence, Valrhona chocolate, Mahabaleshwar strawberries, vanilla beans from Madagascar, Irani pistachio, etc.

He pours his second coffee. A few minutes later, cuts himself a slice of basque cheesecake. A smile crosses his face. It is for this, perhaps, that he trains so hard: so that the croissant or the slice of cake, when it comes, is entirely earned.

Recipe for Sahil Mehta’s healthy lunch

Ingredients

200 g chicken breast; Greek yogurt – 30 g; Tikka masala – ½ tsp; garlic – 4 cloves; ginger – a quarter of an inch; edamame – 50 g; red and yellow bell peppers – 100 g; snow peas – 50 g; steamed rice – 100 g; butter; black pepper to taste

Method

• Marinate the chicken with Greek yogurt, tikka masala, and finely chopped ginger-garlic paste. Let it rest overnight.
• The next day, cook the chicken in a pan in about 15 g butter with garlic and black pepper for 8–10 minutes, until fully cooked.
• At the same time, grease another pan with butter, add one clove of finely chopped garlic and sauté the edamame, snow peas, and bell peppers for 2–3 minutes, keeping them slightly crunchy.
• Finally, mix the rice with the cooked chicken and vegetables.