In the world of luxury pastry, technical perfection is expected. But what separates a truly memorable creation from a merely photogenic one is something far more difficult to manufacture. For Dubai-based pastry artist Ines Chatti, every dessert begins with memory. A walk through a forest in winter, the scent of orange blossom drifting through her grandmother’s Tunisian kitchen, childhood afternoons picking raspberries in the French countryside. These fragments of life are translated, meticulously and poetically, into sculptural cakes. Founded in 2022, Ines Chatti Patisserie has become one of Dubai’s most distinctive luxury pastry concepts, attracting an audience that ranges from discerning Emirati clientele to global luxury fashion maisons. “I work with memories,” Chatti explains. “Everything must connect. The flavour, the texture, the design, the emotion. A cake cannot feel complete if only one aspect is beautiful”.
Before entering the culinary world, Chatti’s path appeared destined for something entirely different. Raised between French and Tunisian cultures, she spent eight years studying criminal law with ambitions of becoming a prison director. Yet somewhere between internships and legal studies, she realised the profession lacked something she instinctively craved: joy. “I wanted to bring happiness to people,” she says. “Making cakes brings happiness. And being able to do that with your hands felt incredibly meaningful.” The pivot would eventually lead her into some of Europe’s most revered culinary institutions. After classical pastry training in France, she joined the brigade at Maison Pic, the celebrated three-Michelin-starred restaurant led by acclaimed chef Anne-Sophie Pic. There, she developed the rigour and discipline that now underpin her highly intricate creations. “Discipline, creativity and resilience,” she says. “Those are the three things that shape success in this industry.”
Yet Chatti’s artistic identity was forged just as much outside professional kitchens as within them. Together with her husband, also a chef, she embarked on what she describes as a gastronomic world tour, travelling across Africa and the Middle East exploring ingredients, farms and local culinary traditions before eventually settling in Dubai in 2019. Travel remains central to her creative language today. Her pastries draw from a vast sensory archive of landscapes, aromas and fleeting encounters collected over years of movement between cultures. One creation, aptly titled Walk Through The Forest, encapsulates this approach entirely. Designed to resemble a pinecone through a custom mould, the dessert layers chocolate mousse infused with pine buds, matcha cream to evoke moss and grass, crunchy pistachio textures mimicking branches underfoot, and yuzu for the sharp freshness of winter air. Finished with silver glitter and delicate gold leaf, the result feels almost cinematic in its storytelling. “I wanted to recreate the feeling of walking through a forest,” she explains. “Not only visually, but emotionally. The sounds, the colours, the atmosphere.”
Nature, unsurprisingly, sits at the heart of nearly every creation. Chatti speaks about flowers and plants with the attentiveness of an artist studying colour palettes. Growing up near the mountains in Grenoble, she developed an early intimacy with the natural world, spending time in forests, gardens and fields collecting edible plants and herbs with her family. Today, that connection manifests through unusual ingredients rarely associated with traditional pâtisserie: pine needles, ylang-ylang, cinnamon tree leaves, jasmine, elderberry and wild oxalis flowers. Her Franco-Tunisian heritage also informs much of her flavour profile. Floral waters, pistachio, saffron and citrus notes appear throughout her collections, woven into classical French pastry techniques with remarkable subtlety. “As half French and half Tunisian, I’m already a mix,” she says. “And I think that’s exactly what I’m doing with my pastry — blending cultures, memories and discoveries into something unique.”
That sensitivity to Middle Eastern flavours has made her work resonate strongly within the Gulf’s luxury landscape. Among her signature creations is Coffea, a sophisticated composition of coffee and saffron ganache layered over date-infused sponge and pistachio crunch, a tribute, she says, to the region she now calls home. Dubai, too, has played an instrumental role in the evolution of her brand. What began as a boutique pastry concept has organically grown through word-of-mouth among a loyal clientele who increasingly view her creations as luxury gifts and collectible culinary experiences.
Her attention to craftsmanship extends far beyond flavour alone. Packaging, uniforms, visual identity and collaborations are all treated with the same level of detail as the pastries themselves. This has led to partnerships with some of the world’s most recognisable luxury houses, including Givenchy, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chanel and Miu Miu. “I want to be the pastry atelier for luxury houses,” she says. “We speak the same language. We care about detail in the same way.” That fashion sensibility increasingly extends into other areas of the brand. Chatti is currently developing a luxury chef jacket line in collaboration with a Portuguese label, reimagining kitchen uniforms through a more elevated, feminine lens. “For women in kitchens, there hasn’t really been anything stylish or well-designed,” she says. “We spend twelve to fifteen hours in these clothes. Why shouldn’t we feel good in them?”.
In many ways, Chatti represents a broader shift currently unfolding across Dubai’s luxury landscape, one where culinary experiences are becoming increasingly narrative-led, emotionally resonant and deeply personal. Her pastries exist somewhere between gastronomy, fashion, sculpture and storytelling. And perhaps that is precisely why they feel so memorable. “For me, being a pastry chef is like being an artist,” Chatti says. “You collect memories your entire life. Then one day, you connect the dots and turn them into a cake.”
