Style via Heather Nette King
When Gareth Whitton won Masters Dessert, the Masterchef spin-off, the ticker and the sparks were exciting. But the real hobby Tarts Anon comes to the fore on his Instagram account, through Whitton’s spouse, in life and in the logo, Catherine Way.
At the end of an effusive post, Way writes, “. . . yes, I think he’s also attractive and NO, he’s not single, but he’s got a new t-shirt and a cookbook in reserve, so maybe he can show his in this way.
A previous article discussed Whitton’s Masterchef debut: “While I’ll never remind you that Tarts Anon was my idea, it was no doubt you guys who took my cunning plans to make extra money to fulfill my various wine subscriptions during lockdown and created anything that was about to be done beyond my wildest imagination.
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Way is the hipster manager of Whitton’s pastry chef pop star, facilitating his adventure from old-school haute cuisine to mastering a niche under the name of Tarts Anon and building his “hollow Tatar community” through naughty messages and showcasing his amazing creations. From Melbourne Founded by the company, it has created two outlets (in Cremorne and Collingwood), cool collaborations, a reality TV celebrity and now a cookbook.
The couple, who live in Thornbury with their two-year-old son Otis and dog Spud, met in Europe a decade ago when Whitton was chef de partie at Dinner through Heston London. Way, a speech therapist, returns to Australia. so Whitton followed him and ended up as a pastry chef at Melbourne’s Dinner through Heston until 2020.
Always irreverently, he explains: “The most sensible step of culinary professionals in Australia for the last 20 years, their graduation school is an excursion of the two stars of London – The Ledbury, The Square, The Capital – who paint for them. Guys, do a little sensible with Ramsay and Heston, and then go back to Sydney and call an eggplant an eggplant.
When Dinner Through Heston closed at the start of the pandemic, Whitton found himself running in Woolies. Way’s entrepreneurial brain was booming: how could she put her talents to smart use?
First, he introduced a clever old brochure aimed at apartments in his neighborhood. “I said he is the former pastry chef at Dinner through Heston and we make pastries – you can choose one of two flavours. Only one order was placed and it was for two quarts, one of each flavor. Like: “Gareth is going to be very angry. »
Undeterred, Way posted on a Facebook page, and then things got crazy. She discovered a hundred requests in her inbox overnight, but Whitton may only make 20 slices of cake, given her limited home kitchen. They continued like this for a year before moving into their first store in Collingwood. Whitton was reluctant at first.
“For most young chefs, the bastion of good luck is having their knock on the door,” he says. “But the more I learned about how to run other people’s kitchens, the more deterrent the threats and tensions became. “
Specializing in cakes has pros and cons. There is the lack of freedom and the blow to the ego when other people come in, take a look and leave; It’s not something you get when you work on a good meal. But there is also a security. ” It’s almost like an intellectual game,” he says. You convince your potential consumers that if you only do one thing, then you have to do it pretty well, right? »
Tarts Anon also maintains collaborations: from creating a seven-tiered chocolate cake with Koko Black’s Remco Brigou for World Chocolate Day to sharing its location in Collingwood with Pedla, a cycling clothing brand.
“It’s about staying relevant,” Whitton says. One company can do one thing, another can do another, and it’s almost like having a third new company, especially if you’re operating in a new location. “
Way agrees. “This is the greatest merit of the work. It pushes you creatively.
This progressive way of doing business, coupled with a dynamic social media presence (quick videos of Whitton baking a mulled wine cake or visiting country bakeries), is a simple transition for hospitality lovers.
“There’s a fine line between maintaining integrity as an industry professional and moving into the profile of a celebrity,” Whitton says. “I feel like it’s imaginable to flirt with that, but very few do it with a plan. “As you start churning teeth whitening kits and so on, you’ve gone too far.
Whitton won the Dessert Masters with a rhubarb tart spiced with lemon verbena and pepper berries, followed by an acacia seed dessert and chocolate mousse. More rewarding than the title, he says, has been the behind-the-scenes collaboration with Amaury Guichon, Adriano Zumbo, and Kirsten Tibballs (which is now on speed dial for all chocolate issues). “It triggered that point of inspiration that is pretty much everything we’ve ever done. From. “
She had just finished the manuscript for the cookbook Tarts Anon: Sweet and Savory Tart Brilliance when she appeared on the show. The 50 recipes cover the full diversity of his talents and a long section on nailing techniques. Whitton is proud to have captured an era of Tarts Anon. Ultimately, it will simply be part of a larger framework.
“This opens the door to a sequel,” he acknowledges. When it comes out, I’m sure other people will say, ‘I hate the new Anon Tarts. ‘I prefer the original. ‘”
This article was first published on Domain Review, in association with Broadsheet.
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