In 2019, Victoria Ammendolia took a giant leap of faith and went back to school for an entirely different career. After years of working at large corporations doing finance consulting, Ammendolia enrolled at George Brown’s culinary school to fulfil her long-held desire to become a pastry chef.
“Nobody knew what was going on. We all thought it was going to be a two-week shutdown,” she says three years after the fact. Despite the roller coaster ride the restaurant industry has been through over that period, Ammendolia’s career move has turned into something very sweet. She also launched her own business, Vic Baking Things via Instagram. Making mostly cakes and cupcakes, this allowed her to experiment and define her decorating style, which she describes as rustic floral. “I like to decorate with fresh flowers. I think it's beautiful, and gives a natural element to the cake. I also don't really use any dyes or food colouring, so any colouring is from natural ingredients,” she says.
Her most famous bake at the hotel is the coconut cream pie, a dessert that took 30 versions over four weeks to perfect, with just two grams of salt being the difference between the runner up and the version of the pie that’s now on menus. This month, she’s turning the pie into a doughnut as part of the hotel’s brunch menu.