Feray AYDOGDU

Feray Aydoğdu likes change, challenges and chance meetings, like when she met pastry chef Ghislain Gaille (a fellow Les vergers Boiron consultant), while studying Philosophy at Galatasaray University in Istanbul. Ghislain contacted her for translations and drew her into the world of pastry making. Her first major change was to drop her research in philosophy to become Ghislain’s assistant for eight years at the Four Seasons Hotel in Istanbul, realizing that pastry could be a raw material for sculpting creative works.

Her next challenge was to become Executive Pastry Chef at the prestigious Shangri-La Bosphorus Hotel and then the Fairmont Quasar İstanbul. During that time, she refined her craft and applied her philosophy of giving new life to classics, using local products, such as almonds and honey, and applying time-tested techniques accurately to create small differences.
Emboldened by her experience, she participated in the European Finals of the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie in Geneva in 2016. Next, she competed in the Coupe du Monde at the Istanbul SIRHA in 2017 and became an active member of the Coupe du Monde Committee in Turkey, which includes Ghislain Gaille (Vakko pâtisserie), Mehmet Yücel (Giano chocolates), Aylin Yazıcıoğlu (Nicole restaurant), Marc Pauquet (Callebaut chocolates), Tim Briggs (Baylan), Richard Vacher (Cordon Bleu Istanbul chef and instructor), with the support of Philippe Chatelain (MOF).

Their next challenge: the 2020 Coupe du Monde. Feray recently opened her own pastry shop, Tonka Pâtisserie in the small Southern Turkish town of Datça (near Bodrum).

There, she starts her day at 6.00am and ends at 11.00pm.

Her research is based on revisiting classics, while reducing the amount of white sugar in the recipes, mainly by combining chocolates and fruit, to surprise and educate people’s taste buds.

Her ambition is to become worldclass in her field. When she can, she swims in the sea.