Pia Lichaytoo tells us all about how her brand Pia's Kitchen came to be
From a woman who could not scramble an egg comes the best chocolate bonbons I have tasted in the Philippines. Pia Lichaytoo did not ever even think about cooking. She never spent time in the kitchen and had no aspirations of opening her own food brand. And yet, here we are. Life takes its funny twists and turns and has its way of letting you know where your talents lie. For Pia, it all began when she married Alex Lichaytoo, a born and bred foodie and the man behind Bacchus Epicerie. She wanted to impress him and cook him and their family memorable meals. The problem? She had no clue where to begin.
"I cried before because I could not cook. I was struggling...there was so much trial and error. Even just making a simple scrambled egg… I must have wasted 30 eggs trying to get it right. I could not even cook rice in a rice cooker,” she admits. Today, the tables have turned. Pia gushes about her love for experimenting in the kitchen, trying new recipes, and easily whips up stunning pizzas, hotpot, barbecues, sukiyaki, steaks, pavlovas, cakes, and now the most incredible chocolates.
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“[During] the pandemic, I experimented a lot with cooking new things since I had so much time. Chocolate came into the picture because we had a lot of chocolate couverture in the house. Bacchus carries this chocolate, and Alex brought a bunch home, so then I experimented. I played around and then after months of development my husband said they were good enough to sell.” And, that is exactly what she did.
Pia’s Kitchen focuses on desserts, on chocolates to be specific, because Pia herself always been a sweet tooth. “My first product was rocky road because this is my all-time favourite dessert.”