Avin Thaliath And Lavonne Are Changing the Professional Baking Landscape in India

An academic approach, and an agility when responding to the times and trends seem to be key to the success of Thaliath and his team at Lavonne, finds Joshua Muyiwa. 

There’s an unshakeable clarity to all of chef Avin Thaliath’s thoughts. He is a Ernakulam-born pastry chef as well as the co-founder and director of academics at Lavonne Academy of Baking Science and Pastry Arts in Bangalore.

“After my tenth standard board exams, I didn’t want to become a doctor, engineer or lawyer – there were more than enough of them in my family,” he says, matter-of-factly. He was easily bored as a teenager and knew that he needed to do something exacting but still engaging and exciting. While the rest of us might have twiddled our thumbs, Thaliath approached this decision rationally, doing an analysis of his brain in the process. “I learned that I’m more right-brained, that I’m artistic, intuitive and keep the big picture in mind, among other qualities,” he explains. So during his summer holidays, over the next two years, he decided to intern with an art gallery, a chartered accountant and at a hotel’s restaurant. “Out of all of them, I realised that working in a kitchen doesn’t bore me at all,” he states. His path was clear. The next year, in 2001, he applied for a Bachelors’ in hotel management from Christ College in Bangalore. 

Towards the end of his second year in the Bachelors’ programme, he received a scholarship to study at Vatel Hotel & Tourism Business School at Nîmes in the South of France. And here too, they had the same rational approach as Thaliath. He was given a competency mapping test and it was determined that all of his skills would be perfectly suited for the culinary stream of baking and pastry arts. He finished at the top of his class and returned to work with the Taj Group of Hotels, followed by a stint at the Orchid Hotels, and a teaching post in the Hotel Management course at Christ University, where he taught till five years ago. 

Melon Gazpacho with prosciutto ham and berries

Founding Lavonne Academy of Baking Science and Pastry Arts

But there were no places equipped and stocked for Thaliath to practise the skills and techniques he had learned during his time abroad. On June 23, 2012: he along with Vinesh Johny and Lijo Eapean and two students started Lavonne, the country’s first international baking sciences and pastry arts academy, with the diploma programme certified by City & Guilds, London. It wasn’t just a place for pastry chefs to play, it also had a higher purpose. “We didn’t want baking sciences and pastry arts to be a course a student took because they didn’t get into any other college course. We wanted it to become a first choice career for our students,” he declares. And this desire is reflected in the choice of name, Lavonne, which comes from French and means ‘of the yew tree.’ Yew trees are known for their longevity, and are associated with learning and education. 

From just two students, Lavonne, a little more than a decade later, has seen more than hundreds of students graduate and step out into the professional world. And presently, Lavonne has lengthy waiting lists for their Diplôme de Pâtisserie, Six Week Certificate and Weekend courses. And the reason is the institute’s holistic pedagogy that prepares their students for the real-world. “There’s knowledge, but there’s also application of that knowledge,” Thaliath says of their fundamental approach. “At Lavonne, you don’t just learn how to make a brownie. You learn how the product came to be — its social history; how each of the ingredients work alone and together — the science behind these elements; and with all of this information, one is given the space to be creative – the artistic side,” he succinctly explains. Prathana A Narang, deputy chief of academics, echoes this approach. “We build these different streams of knowledge into the basics of our Baking Sciences and Pastry Arts diploma. If there’s a solid foundation, then changes like dietary restrictions or trends can easily be adopted,” she tells us. There’s also close and constant contact with new techniques or skills from professional spheres as well. Narang, who used to work with the Leela Palace in Bangalore before returning to Lavonne to teach, says, “The minute I learn anything new, I’m eager to pass it on to my class and students. There’s nothing we ever hold back.” 

Lessons in Pastry & Business

And this attention to the details, a holistic methodology and constant helpfulness of the faculty is something their students appreciate and find extremely valuable. Madhura Loganathan, baker-owner of Le Petit Four in Pondicherry, who found her way to the academy in January of 2018 on hearing about it from a fellow basketball player at Indiranagar Club says: “The course feels personalised and hands-on. You aren’t just learning about something in theory, but also get to see it happen for yourself during practicals. Like you might be told that sugar is the food for the yeast in bread, or salt controls the gluten, but actually seeing it happen, and seeing the differences it makes to your products really solidifies that knowledge.” This regard for the foundation has meant that Loganathan has been able to receive information and grow her techniques and skills. “During my internship, before opening my own bakery, it was eye-opening to see that I could absorb from someone with more experience easily because I was grounded in my basics,” she says. 

And the students are not just trained to excel in their practice, but are also trained to handle the business side of things. “We don’t just learn production, we also learn the public side of things — how to create a business, how to market it and how to interact with the customer. And this is really helpful,” she adds. For Thaliath and his faculty at the academy, “the entrepreneurial and commercial aspects are extremely important as well.” And this can be seen in their own cafe expansion across Bangalore. “We’ll be opening a branch of the Academy in Delhi with our specialised programmes, along with a few cafes. And then, cafes in Bombay and Hyderabad, and a few more in Bangalore as well,” says Thaliath of their upcoming plans. And even their programmes at the Academy are expanding with educational programmes to address “the growing interest in cheese, gelatos, coffee and plant-based diets,” he tells us. 

Joshua Muyiwa is a Bangalore-based poet, and freelance writer. You can follow him @silverbangled

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