Philip Khoury, head pastry chef at Harrods, London. (Credit: Matt Russell)
It was an "epiphany moment" that set him on the path to pastry. Sitting on a bench facing the church of Saint-Sulpice in the Odéon district of Paris, Philip Khoury tasted two small cakes — a "Merveilleux" and a 2,000-leaf, signed Pierre Hermé. “That's when I knew I wanted to be a pastry chef,” he said.
That was back in 2011, when Khoury was 20 years old and had just finished studying design at the University of Western Sydney. Fast forwarding to 2024, Khoury is head pastry chef at Harrods, one of the world's most iconic luxury retailers, in London. He has also just published a book of exclusively vegan recipes called “A New Way to Bake.” Khoury is shaking up culinary traditions with a creative boldness that challenges the preconception that vegan baking is less tasty.
"My mother is from Tannourine and my father from Sir al-Denniyeh, just like [Michelin-starred chef] Alan Geaam!" Khoury exclaimed.
The young pastry chef grew up in Australia to immigrant parents and spent most of his life in Sydney, with the exception of two years in Lebanon which were interrupted by the July 2006 war. "My father wanted me to discover life in Lebanon and for us to be close to the family, it was an immersion I loved."
From impossible to possible
“I've always had a sweet tooth and been drawn to pastry-making," Khoury shared. “But I never envisaged making a career out of it." After the trip to Paris, he returned to Sydney and began training as a pastry chef.
He worked alternately in restaurants and passed through some of the best: Quay, one of the most awarded restaurants in Australia, and Adriano Zumbo, whose pastries are renowned for their originality.
It was after a stint as pastry chef and head of research and development at Adriano Zumbo that Khoury decided to leave Australia for London, encouraged in particular by his father, who felt that his talent could flourish beyond Sydney. He landed a position as sous-chef pâtissier at Harrods in 2018 and two years later was promoted to chef pâtissier. It was at Harrods that Khoury immersed himself in vegan pastry, a field he thought "impossible" to explore.
"I wanted to take up this challenge, because I'm convinced of its ethical aspect," he explained. “But how can you make pastries without eggs, milk or butter? And without compromising on taste? A lot of trial and error in the kitchen," he said.
“There's a prejudice that vegan desserts are inferior or of lower quality than traditional desserts. It's my responsibility as a chef to demonstrate how delicious it can be."
‘Rewriting the rules’
In an article on Philip Khoury, Harrods wrote: "The man is a culinary visionary."
Pastry Arts Magazine also described the him as a "visionary," and a "pastry chef who is changing the way we think about desserts."
"The secret of Khoury's success lies in the fact that (...) he rebuilds recipes from the ground up, rewriting the rules of pastry," proclaimed The Times. "The pastry chef is quietly revolutionizing cakes at London's famous Harrods Food Halls," praised the Los Angeles Times.
"We've never really asked ourselves why we put butter and eggs in pastry, there are many other ingredients that aren't used to the full," explained Philip Khoury. “We're inclined to replace butter with margarine, which I don't do. I use cold-pressed virgin oils, for example. I rely on quality ingredients.”
In his Harrods creations, Khoury sometimes incorporates Lebanese influences.
"My great-grandmother, who lived between Lebanon and Australia, had two Lebanese fig trees in her garden. She carefully protected them from birds and set up a whole system using CDs to repel them." It was from this memory that she got the idea for "Fig Feuille," a puff pastry dessert with layers of figs.
The innovation prize
While not all his baked goods at Harrods are vegan, his book, released in August 2023, takes up the challenge of offering only vegan recipes. He hopes that “A New Way to Bake,” for which he worked for three years, will become "a reference." In the book, Khoury proposes recipes with "ingredients that everyone has at home."
“Lots of olive oil," he emphasized. “How to bake with olive oil could have been the other name of the book."
Harpers Bazaar has just placed “A New Way to Bake” on its list of best cookbooks to buy. "These delicious recipes are all vegan and the results are superb," commented The Daily Mail.
In September 2023, Khoury’s innovative vision was hailed by the baking world when at the just 33, he received the La Liste Innovation Award, a recognition given to outstanding pastry chefs and patisserie establishments around the world.
He received the award for "his remarkable advances in plant-based patisserie and for his new book." At the same ceremony, the recipient of the honorary prize was none other than his inspiration, Pierre Hermé.
“A New Way to Bake” is available at Virgin Megastore branches across Lebanon.
Philip Khoury's chocolate chip cookies. (Courtesy of Philip Khoury)
Philip Khoury's chocolate chip cookies
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: between 12 and 15 minutes
Total time: 35 minutes
Serving size: 12 cookies
Difficulty: easy
Ingredients:
120 g caster sugar
120 g brown or muscovado sugar
1/6 tsp (0.5 g) cinnamon
80 g vegetable milk
100 g extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp (5 g) vanilla extract
260 g flour
½ tsp (4 g) baking powder
½ tsp (3 g) baking soda
¼ tsp (2 g) fine salt
180 g dark chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate blocks
Sea salt flakes, for sprinkling
Preparation:
Step 1: In a bowl, whisk together the two sugars, cinnamon, milk, olive oil and vanilla extract until smooth, with no trace of oil. This is your syrup.
Step 2: In another large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, fine salt and chocolate chips.
Step 3: add the syrup to the dry ingredients and mix with a silicone spatula until a dough forms. Leave the dough to rest in the fridge for 1 hour.
Step 4: Preheat oven to 180°C and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
Step 5: Divide and weigh the dough into 70 g portions, then shape into balls and arrange on the baking sheet, spacing them 5 cm apart and away from the edge. Sprinkle the dough with a few grains of sea salt.
Step 6: Bake for about 12 minutes for soft, melt-in-the-mouth cookies, and up to 15 minutes for cookies with crispier edges. Once out of the oven, for perfectly round cookies, use a cookie cutter or small bowl about 2 cm wider than the baked cookie, and twist it around the cookie to quickly round off the edges.
These cookies will keep for up to 7 days in an airtight tin, but are particularly tasty on the first day, before the chocolate cools and hardens.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.