Pastry Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar, Founder, Chef Ri’s Hotline

What happens when a pastry chef trained at Le Cordon Bleu London, shaped by the exacting kitchens of Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and The Dorchester, decides that the next chapter of her career shouldn’t be another prestigious kitchen… but her own? For Pastry Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar, the answer is Chef Ri’s Hotline, a Mumbai-based dessert venture that is as much about personality, experimentation and culture as it is about precision pastry.

Pastry Chef Ridhima’s journey is a reminder that great pastry is built on far more than beautiful desserts. Her time in some of London’s most demanding culinary environments taught her the less glamorous, but essential, side of the profession… discipline, organisation, ordering, cost control, waste management and the ability to hold your own when service gets intense. Winning the Craft Guild of Chefs Graduate Awards in 2024 added another milestone to an already impressive early career. But perhaps her most important lesson was learning that failure isn’t the opposite of success; sometimes, it is where the real education begins.

Returning to Mumbai, Pastry Chef Ridhima chose not to follow the conventional route of immediately opening a patisserie or café. Instead, she launched Chef Ri’s Hotline as a cloud kitchen… a deliberate space to experiment, understand her customer and build a brand on her own terms. It is a model that gives her something a traditional establishment often cannot: room to play. Here, nostalgia can meet contemporary technique, unusual ingredients can become the starting point for a dessert, and something that looks irresistibly ‘Instagrammable’ still has to pass the most important test… taste.

For Pastry Chef Ridhima, making dessert “cool” is not about chasing every viral trend. It is about making pastry feel culturally relevant, exciting and desirable to a generation that wants food to have a point of view.

Her fascination with provenance… from Sakura sourced through specialist tea merchants in England to single-origin chocolate and her exploration of Indian-origin ingredients… adds another interesting layer to that philosophy. There is curiosity behind the creativity, but also restraint: when an ingredient has a story and a distinct character, sometimes the smartest thing a pastry chef can do is let it speak.

And Chef’s Ri’s Hotline, she says, is only the beginning. Her five-year vision stretches towards multiple storefronts, collaborations and eventually taking the brand beyond India, while retaining the personality and quality that made it distinctive in the first place.

In this exclusive interview with Sumita Chakraborty, Founder & Editor-in-chief, TheGlitz, Pastry Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar, Founder, Chef Ri’s Hotline, talks about the lessons she carried home from London’s elite kitchens, the leap from structured culinary institutions to entrepreneurship, why she chose Chef Ri’s Hotline to be a cloud-kitchen, making desserts “cool” for a new generation, the fascinating stories behind her ingredients and her ambitious vision for building a dessert world that is unmistakably her own.

Over to Pastry Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar, Founder, Chef Ri’s Hotline

The Journey Behind the Pastry Chef: You trained at Le Cordon Bleu London and went on to work at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and The Dorchester. What did those kitchens teach you about pastry… and, more importantly, about yourself… that you couldn’t have learned anywhere else?
Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar – Before working in those kitchens, I thought creativity and technical skill were enough to run a great kitchen. I quickly learnt that there’s so much more to it: discipline, organisation, ordering, cost and waste management, and the systems that keep everything running smoothly. Those are things I could never have learnt in a classroom.

More importantly, I learnt that I was capable of much more than I thought from managing busy services on my own to representing my kitchen in another country and bringing home an award. Most of all, I learnt to embrace failure. Some of my biggest lessons have come from the things I didn’t get right the first time.

From Michelin-Starred Kitchens to Your Own Hotline: You’ve gone from some of the world’s most demanding culinary environments to building Chef Ri’s Hotline, your own cloud kitchen in Mumbai. What made you take the leap, and what was the scariest part of leaving the security and structure of established kitchens?
Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar – Even before I moved to the UK to study, I knew that I would eventually come back to India and build something of my own. I’ve always been deeply creative, and I wanted the freedom to explore that creativity on my own terms to take risks, make mistakes, experiment and ultimately create a kitchen and a brand that felt entirely mine.

So leaving the structure of established kitchens was daunting, but coming back was never really a question it had always been the plan. I also owe a lot to my parents, who gave me the freedom and confidence to take that leap and have supported me through every stage of building from scratch.

The Challenge of Starting Young: Winning the Craft Guild of Chefs Graduate Awards in 2024 was a significant recognition early in your career. Since then, what has been the biggest challenge of proving yourself in an industry where age, experience and credibility can sometimes work against a young chef?
Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar – I think one of the biggest challenges has been finding a way to stand out while still staying true to my own identity as a chef. When I came back to Mumbai, I realised how much the pastry scene had evolved and how many talented people were already doing incredible work.

There will always be new trends and things that everyone suddenly wants to create, but I’ve learnt that I don’t need to follow every one of them. For me, the challenge — and the goal — is to keep evolving while building a style that feels distinctly my own.

Why a Cloud Kitchen: Why did you choose a cloud-kitchen model rather than opening a traditional patisserie or café? Was it a strategic business decision, a creative decision, or did you simply want the freedom to build something completely on your own terms?
Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar – I’d frame it as both strategic and creative, especially because you knew you eventually wanted to build a larger physical concept. The cloud kitchen gave you a lower-risk environment to understand your customer and build the brand first.

Starting with a cloud kitchen was both a strategic and creative decision. I wanted the freedom to build the brand, understand my customer and experiment with products without immediately taking on the pressures of a traditional café or patisserie. It gave me the space to focus on the food and develop a strong identity for Chef Ri’s Hotline first. I don’t necessarily see the Hotline remaining only a cloud kitchen I see this as the foundation for something much bigger.

Making Dessert “Cool” Again: You say you want to make desserts cool, culturally relevant and exciting for a new generation. What does “cool” actually mean to you when it comes to pastry… and how do you balance Instagram appeal and playful ideas with serious technique and flavour?
Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar – For me, making dessert “cool” isn’t just about how it looks on Instagram. It’s about making pastry feel exciting, desirable and part of culture rather than something reserved for special occasions or fine dining. I love playful flavours, nostalgia and creating products people want to photograph and talk about, but flavour will always come first.

My training taught me that creativity only works when the technique behind it is strong, so even when something looks fun or effortless, there’s a lot of thought and precision behind it.

The Ingredient Question: You’re particular about sourcing, from Sakura sourced through tea merchants in England to single-origin chocolate and your plans for Indian-origin chocolate. How much do the story and provenance of an ingredient influence the dessert you eventually create… and are there ingredients you’ve discovered that have completely changed the way you think about pastry?

Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar – For me, an ingredient’s story and provenance can be a huge source of inspiration. I love understanding where something comes from, how it’s traditionally used, and then finding a way to interpret it through my own style of pastry. Working with ingredients like Sakura or single-origin chocolate has also taught me that sometimes the best approach is restraint when an ingredient has a distinct character, you don’t need to overcomplicate it. As I explore more Indian-origin ingredients and chocolate, I’m excited to let those flavours influence the way I create rather than simply following what already exists.

The Bigger Dream for Chef Ri’s Hotline: Imagine we meet you five years from now. What would you love Chef Ri’s Hotline to have become? A cult dessert brand, a physical patisserie, a global cloud-kitchen concept, or something you haven’t even imagined yet? And what would you never compromise on while getting there?

Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar – Five years from now, I’d love Chef Ri’s Hotline to have grown into a cult dessert brand with multiple storefronts, while still having the personality and excitement it had when we started. I want it to become more than just a place people order dessert from I want the box, the stores, the collaborations and the entire Hotline world to feel recognisable and desirable. Eventually, I’d love to take that world beyond India as well. But no matter how much we grow, I never want to compromise on the quality of the food, the creativity behind it or the sense of personality that makes the brand feel like us.

TheGlitz Take

From Heston’s high-pressure kitchens to her very own Chef Ri’s Hotline, Pastry Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar is proving that pastry doesn’t have to be prim, proper or predictable. With serious technique, playful flavours and a distinctly rebellious streak, she’s giving desserts a new-age attitude… blending nostalgia, precision and a generous dose of fun. Her desserts may look Instagram-ready, but beneath the pretty layers is all about nailing the bite, balancing the flavours and serving up a story with every layer. More power to Pastry Chef Ridhima Mhaiskar, who’s proving that when technique meets a little mischief, dessert gets seriously delicious.