By Marione Borela Lineses
Executive Pastry Chef Wolfgang Wagenleitner is the newest addition to the Sharq Village and Spa family where he has been contributing to the hotel’s stand-out desserts.
His personal adage, “if we are going to do it, we must do it right, or not do it at all,” and his constant persuasion for perfection has landed him his dream job of being a pastry chef in different destinations.
Wagenleitner, 42, has been in the field for 27 years. He earned his education in a pastry school in Austria.
His background in pastry stemmed from his father who is also a pastry chef. From age 15, he received training in Vienna and at 19 was sent to Japan for food promotion. His career also took him to Switzerland, Thailand, and back to Austria. He also served in Russia for 10 years.
Wagenleitner found himself working on pastry production and teaching local employees in Greece after a chef tasted his magnum opus dessert, the White Chocolate Mocha.
“They hired me because they tasted my cake, they didn’t know who I was.”
In fact, his masterpiece has enticed many people, making it popular in the countries he has set foot. “I created this recipe 18 years ago when I first became a pastry chef in Vienna. I’ve always believed that wherever you go you have to impress first. So wherever I go, I bring this first,” he adds.
Every morning at half past five, he kicks off with his routine and organises the day in the kitchen, to try to make as much as possible with what is present and with what is impossible. Metaphorically speaking, not everything in the pastry world is sugar-coated, that’s why planning is very important before producing a creation. Nobody would want any disaster to strike on their turf, especially in Wagenleitner’s kitchen.
One of his major roles in the hotel is to bring out the maximum from his team and adapt the best from experiences. “In the first 15 years, I was focused on techniques and now it’s more on developing people.”
He analyses every operation, not only with his team but with everyone in the hotel business to achieve their goals. “I share my experience to as much people as I can so they can adapt and learn from it,” he says.
Wagenleitner searches for good food in his travels and finds the authenticity of each local dish as one of the most important factors in choosing a favourite, such as what and how the local products were used. And having been exposed and used to all the top-of-the-line ingredients on a daily basis, he still melts at the thought of his all-time favourite dish, his mother’s mashed potato with a sausage goulash.
Wolfgang comes from a big family with seven sisters and seven brothers, and this has taught him to become a team player especially in the hotel business where everyone works in synchronicity for customer satisfaction.
In the past years, Wolfgang has prepared special birthday pastries, cakes and truffles for high-profile personalities from different nations. These, he recalls, are some of his major achievements in his career.
Surprisingly though, in spite of his proven works of art, it never occurred to him to enter in any pastry competition, but rather focused more on delivering and understanding techniques. “There’s so much time involved in making a masterpiece and at the end of the day I would like to prove to our customers what we can do. Quality is the most important thing, where people can identify us with what we can do.”
A few months after arriving in Doha, Wagenleitner feels invited to make headway in the city’s pastry arena. Along with his wife and 2-year-old daughter, they are adapting well and enjoying the new culture. “I will never forget the roots of where I travel, first of all nobody forced me to go anywhere. Second I’m a guest, so I have to behave like one. We are all guests here,” he says.
Of course no pastry chef expected a tea party to reach where they are now, and he grabbed every opportunity to work even at a young age to test the waters in the kitchen. “If you have a dream you will find a way, I came from a family with nothing. But I never gave up. Preparation is important in choosing a profession because it means spending your entire life with it. So if you want it, take it seriously,” Wolfgang says.
His low-profile yet diplomatic demeanour shows how serious he can be with his job. Assuring that a lot of hard work was poured on whatever dish the guests see on the plate; from planning to execution to approval, it’s definitely not a cakewalk. As profound and as special his recipes are, I gleamed at my plate of Chestnut Cream and Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake. It sure did look like a concoction of hard work and creativity.
One bite of the cake glazed with tiny gold leaves on top fills me with delight. The flavours are just right, not too sweet, soft and has that melt-in-your-mouth consistency. “That’s just one of the cakes I regularly make, wait until you taste my White Chocolate Mocha,” he smiles. Indeed, I can’t wait until I get a slice of that heaven on my plate.
Wolfgang Wagenleitner ... known for his stand-out desserts.
