HRH, The Pastry Princess

Red hair, sparkling eyes and a laugh that echoes like wind chimes. Venessa Smith is like a bespoke cupcake – soft, sweet and sugary. Ironic, then, that she is a pastry chef with what she calls ‘a slight obsession with cake’. I spent the morning with Old Town Italy’s quirky pastry chef to pick up a host of tasty titbits, among them the legendary cronut.

Old Town Italy has only been open for a few months but, already, it’s a phenomenon. And when I marched in with
my trusty intern, Anima, I completely understood why. It’s like another world, one “where troubles melt like lemon
drops, way above the chimney tops”…really. A bustling restaurant, juice and sandwich bar, butchery, a gelato station that triggered my inner child and a delightful grocer. Then, the bakery. Oh, the bakery. Rows of confectionaries that temporarily struck the word ‘diet’ off my vocabulary and, at the heart of it all, a perky pastry chef named Venessa.
With her ballerina bun, denim dungarees and leather tool belt, she whizzes me on a tour through Old Town before we sit down with chilled bottles of Italian lemonata.

“My family moved around a lot, to countless little towns. I went to, like, 15 schools,” Venessa tells me. “But I’m a Natal girl at heart.” One of Venessa’s earliest memories in the kitchen was on the family farm in Biggarsberg (near
Pietermaritzburg) where she got away from the madness of the city. “I come from a family of chefs. We are all foodies in some way.”

“My grandmother had a cake baking business and I remember, every time we would visit her, the smell of cake,
or rusks or biscuits, in the oven. Who doesn’t love that smell?” Venessa smiles as she remembers her nanny, Sisi. “She was a big, bubbly mama who made the most extraordinary food, so I followed her around the kitchen a lot. She taught me to slice an onion when I was very little. The kitchen was a happy place for me; I remember sitting by the coal stove to get warm in winter.”

While visiting her mother in Clarens during her late teens, Venessa had a wild idea. “There were so many little
restaurants and coffee shops. I liked to visit them and started imagining having my own spot.” She opened Smokey Joe’s and soon developed a cult following, largely due to her unique coffees. “We had flavours like chilli-chocolate,
marzipan malt, cinnamon supreme and Bar One. I got all the tannies in the area to bake cakes and other goodies, but I wanted flair.” So, Venessa got stuck into the kitchen and taught herself to bake the most intricate, unique treats. “I’m a pastry freak, I think. Cake makes me so happy and it’s something I wanted to share.” She admits it was challenging initially. “I’m a sponge; I read every cookbook and food blog I could find and soaked up the knowledge. I got chefs to show me things I couldn’t understand.” Venessa believes her lack of formal training does not discount her in the least. “I taught myself to swim. There can be a recipe, but everyone has their own interpretation and learning on my own gave me creative freedom and room to play. There is no room for error in baking, so it took a lot of practise. But I’ve put in the work and I consider myself a chef.”

At this point in the interview Venessa asks if I feel like eating something sweet. My mind (the good part that remembered I’m supposed to be on diet) said no but I heard my voice saying ‘of course!’ She claps her hands
excitedly and has a waiter bring out her proudest creation: two freshly made cronuts. Legend has it that Venessa
was the first pastry chef in South Africa to try her hand at the delicacy made famous by New York chef Dominique
Ansel, in June 2013. The cronut consists of layers of croissant pastry deep fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar, injected with creamy vanilla custard and slathered with chocolate. (Yes, I’m sure you can also hear the angels singing.) “These are our most popular items at the bakery,” Venessa says proudly. “People reserve them, otherwise they’re sold out by 11am every day. I’ve seen fights break out over these treats.” She rolls her eyes jokingly. “It’s like all I’m good for is a cronut!”

Venessa, who describes herself as a hedonistic foodie, says she is a creative at heart. “I sing, I paint…I was a fire
dancer at one point. Food is a form of art, but I’m a perfectionist. It comes through in my work.” She is methodical
about her future. “Right now, life couldn’t be sweeter. This is my family and I love the freedom I have in my
bakery. I’m just having fun and every day, I make someone’s day. My goal is to become Durban’s pastry princess.
Just watch this space!”