AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

For years, gourmet pas­try chef Nazeem Baksh be­lieved his fu­ture was set—root­ed firm­ly in oil and gas as a plant op­er­a­tor at Petrotrin. But what he didn’t re­alise was that the sci­ence that would tru­ly shape his life wasn’t buried deep in the re­fin­ery. It was wait­ing qui­et­ly in the warmth of a kitchen.

From a young age, Baksh was con­sid­ered the “top chef” in his fam­i­ly, set­ting the tone every Sun­day with his lunch­es and sweet treats. He found him­self ex­per­i­ment­ing with bak­ing even more as he searched for ways to pre­pare gluten-free meals for his fa­ther.

Al­though these ear­ly cre­ations be­gan as hob­bies and fam­i­ly re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, Baksh even­tu­al­ly plunged in­to bak­ing full-time when his ca­reer took an un­ex­pect­ed turn.

“Af­ter 2018, with the clo­sure of the for­mer Petrotrin, that made a turn in my life,” Baksh told Guardian Me­dia. “Be­cause from that point, things were a bit rocky in the oil and gas sec­tor, and I de­cid­ed to go across in­to some­thing new.”

Seiz­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty, Baksh en­rolled in lo­cal cook­ing and bak­ing class­es while be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly fas­ci­nat­ed by food sci­ence.

As the years went by, he sharp­ened his skills through lo­cal train­ing. But while watch­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned bak­ers on­line and binge­ing pop­u­lar Net­flix bak­ing shows, Baksh re­alised he need­ed to ven­ture be­yond T&T to hone the tech­ni­cal skills re­quired for pro­fes­sion­al pas­try artistry—dri­ven by his own hunger for growth.

His for­mal train­ing would even­tu­al­ly take him across the world—to Paris, Dubai, and sev­er­al des­ti­na­tions across Eu­rope and Latin Amer­i­ca—learn­ing from world-class chefs, in­clud­ing Amau­ry Gui­chon of Net­flix’s School of Choco­late. There, he dove deep in­to ad­vanced pas­try tech­niques.

When the 39-year-old chef is not abroad train­ing, he runs his busi­ness, In­cred­i­ble Cre­ations, in Pe­nal. Draw­ing on his glob­al ex­pe­ri­ence, Baksh stands out with tech­niques that el­e­vate lo­cal favourites such as hops bread, co­conut rolls and pies. He al­so pro­duces gluten-free al­ter­na­tives to ac­com­mo­date cus­tomers with spe­cial di­etary needs.

For those who crave in­ter­na­tion­al flavours, he of­fers gourmet desserts in­clud­ing bon­bons, cheese­cakes and spe­cial­ty crois­sants—among them the Dubai choco­late crois­sant. These pas­tries are craft­ed with metic­u­lous at­ten­tion to at­mos­pher­ic con­di­tions, fer­men­ta­tion and chem­istry, en­sur­ing that every bite de­liv­ers a new ex­pe­ri­ence for lo­cal con­sumers.

For his desserts that re­quire choco­late sculpt­ing and pre­ci­sion, Baksh says tem­per­ing choco­late—and get­ting crois­sants to “be­have” in a trop­i­cal kitchen—re­mains one of his biggest chal­lenges.

De­spite these hur­dles, he spends long days in the heat, com­mit­ted to de­liv­er­ing the high­est qual­i­ty.

“What­ev­er you put out on your plate comes from your heart. And if there is a day your mood is not right, don’t try your hands, es­pe­cial­ly on pas­tries. Take time for your­self, re­lax, and start with a fresh, clean mind.”

Hav­ing sharp­ened his own craft, Baksh now hopes to in­spire oth­ers in the culi­nary field to dream big­ger and push fur­ther.

“For those who are look­ing to seek pro­fes­sion­al train­ing and ob­tain knowl­edge… you have to take it to a se­ri­ous lev­el, where you will not be dis­tract­ed or lis­ten to low­er train­ing and low­er teach­ing. If you want to ex­cel in culi­nary, you have to de­vote your 100 per cent to it.”