Serdar Yener’s Autobiography

Around 3 years old.

I was born on the 28th of November 1952 in Istanbul, which is one of the most populated cities in the world. Today, almost twenty million people live in this historic city of Turkey. As far as I can remember from my childhood days and some of my family photos, my father’s family was quite wealthy. The white house with two stories and ten rooms where we lived was surrounded by all sorts of fruit trees and it was the landmark of the small town called Bakirkoy, which today has become a very busy town in the giant city. My grandfather was the owner and founder of a factory, which supplied road construction materials, and he became rich during his time when Turkey started building the city’s highways in the 1950s. Unfortunately, after my grandfather’s passing, neither my father nor his siblings had the interest to carry on with his legacy.

I had an ordinary childhood life with lots of self-made toys like wood carved guns and galvanised wire trucks. I could still remember the football matches my friends and I had on the dusty streets whenever it was free of cars. Not to mention the wooden scooter I made with ball bearing wheels.

Me (middle) having dinner with family.

In 1959 when I was just seven years old, our beautiful house was burned down and everyone in my family had to move to another town called Sisli. As a result of that, I had a complete change of environment, school, friends, hobbies and activities in such a short time. Whenever I had a few coins to spare, I always indulged myself in those delicious mouth-watering finger sponges from the corner pastry shop, not knowing that I would be baking the same sponges in huge quantities in years to come. During this time, there was no television at home but through the cinema movies that I frequently watched growing up over the years, I learned that there’s a world outside which I would like to visit one day. I have never excelled well in subjects like maths and history at school, and I can never remember names and places, but remarkably, geometry and physics that involve shapes, lines and creative thinking was a breeze for me. Obviously, I inherited my natural talent from my father Sadi Yener who was an amateur painter and my older brother Derya also showed great artistic abilities. When I had to repeat 11th grade as my results got from bad to worse, I asked my mum, Suhendan Yener to find a job for me. Her first choice was Istanbul Hilton, for she knew the director of finance, Ekrem Colakoglu who rented an apartment from us. That was the day of my lifetime encounter with the pastry world. Mr Colakoglu sent me and another boy (with the same intention as me) to the chief cashier Enis Tekin. I can never forget that particular moment when Mr Tekin pushed his glasses up, pointed his finger at me and said “You go to the pastry kitchen!” and to the other boy he said, “You go to the Rooftop Restaurant”. With those few words, he paved my lifetime career for me as a pastry chef. I didn’t know anything about pastry then; thus it was the beginning of my profession.

Istanbul Hilton

I started my career as a trainee outlet controller and I was stationed in an enormous pastry kitchen with 25 staff. Whenever the mixer machines were on, I felt like I was working in the engine room of a cruise ship. I was 17 years old then and each day, sitting behind my desk, I had to count and record every bit of dessert, ice cream, bread and pastries into an inter-kitchen transfer form before they leave or return to the pastry kitchen. The recording of transfers and staff sales were transacted a few times a day but it left me with lots of free time to observe everything that happened right before my eyes in the pastry kitchen; mass production, fine cake decorating, chocolate dipping and bread baking. After a few days’ hesitations, I stood up and started giving the staff a hand. It was then that I realised that it was much more interesting than just filling out forms. My first month’s salary was 402 Turkish lira and 25 kurus. I gave half of the money I earned to my mum and enjoyed the first feelings of being useful and responsible.

My first position as kitchen clerk.

The first wedding cake I ever made.

When summer was over and school started again I continued working part-time after the school hours. Priorities changed and school became less important than working in pastry. By then, I was already quite popular amongst the staff and even the managers were requesting me to decorate their cakes. Many of my colleagues were encouraging me to work in the pastry rather than just helping part-time. I took up their advice and in 1970; I submitted my application for the pastry cook position to the human resource manager, Avni Diper. I was told to list the things I learned every 20 days and give him a full report. My first report was quite comprehensive as I had one full year’s hands-on experience before. When my school results got worse and the term was finishing, I decided to give up my studies and concentrate on pastry. I then applied for a full-time commis position and knew that pastry will be my life from now on. I put in a lot of effort and involved myself fully in all the functions, promotions, banquets and special menus at this five-star hotel where I worked. Even without my apprenticeship, I was holding all the key tasks at the pastry and was also trusted by local chefs and expatriate Danish pastry chef Mr Petersons. When he left, his successor, a Swiss pastry chef named Peter Straub came on board and we enjoyed working together.

I loved music a lot too and I spent many hours after work rehearsing as lead singer in a band. I worked at a graphic sign shop part-time, and just before I left Hilton, I opened my own photography shop STUDIO 73 for a short period. When my first manager Mr Tekin resigned from Hilton and was appointed as Food and Beverage manager at Ankara Palace which was yet to open, he offered me the position of Pastry Chef there and I accepted it without any hesitation. It was a great challenge for me, with only a few years’ experience, I was given the opportunity to lead a team of 10 pastry staff and to organise the opening of the pastry department of this newly refurbished classic hotel.

Working at the hotel.

Performing at a friend’s wedding.

From left: Mr & Mrs Mehmet Binyilldiz, George Usta, myself, Mr Dogan, Mr Bilal, Mrs Tekin, Mr Faruk Atayman and Mr Enis Tekin.

For the first time in my life, at the age of 21, many wonderful things were happening to me; so far away from home, being independent, making good money, “boss” of the pastry department and the freedom of work execution. I was young and full of enthusiasm.

Ankara Palace’s opening ball was a huge success; with over 40 different varieties of sweets and desserts which my assistant Hakki Pinarbasi (who was also previously working at Istanbul Hilton) and myself had prepared for the last 3 days and 2 nights continuously.

Ankara Palace hotel with its amazing numerous classic arches was built in 1928 in the capital city of Ankara. Opened by Ataturk, it was the very first luxurious hotel at the beginning of the new Republic of Turkey and the stage of many historic moments. For some reason, it was closed for a while later renovated by Oleyis and in 1973 opened again to mainly diplomatic clientele.

With my staff and assistant Pastry Chef Hakki Pinarbasi (standing right)

My Chef George Usta (Rauf Soykut) was an 80 year old white Russian and I learned a lot of things from him. He was like a recipe folder, for he taught me how to manage the most important ability of a pastry chef that is to build recipes instead of collecting them. From those days onwards, ingredients were like the knobs on an equalizer. What happens if one of the knobs gets turned up and another one turned down? That was the first learning step of composing recipes on paper without actually making them. I really enjoyed working in this very old kitchen. We used to make all those preserves, jam, pickles, etc. After almost two years working and serving many foreign diplomats, I realized that I had to join the military service for 20 months, which was compulsory at the time for every man when he reaches 20 years old in Turkey. I was then almost 23.

As usual, it helped to have a profession at a young age. After struggling through the few months’ training, I ended up again in Ankara and was placed in a military house to serve only the hierarchy officers. It was not like a hotel, with no machines nor mixers and everything had to be done with hands. I was lucky to experience this manual work environment to appreciate the future’s technologies.

The pastry kitchen was only 12m square and two staff (including myself) had to finish almost 2000 pieces of bakery and pastry items, one to two wedding cakes and 30kg mix cookie every day. We had to really “work smart and not hard” so that we can still have enough time to go for a walk in Cankaya.

Just a few days before my birth certificate was stamped (signifying the end of my military service) I received a letter from my previous General Manager Mr Mehmet Binyildiz. He wrote that he has recommended me to his friend Mr Taci Tinmaz who was the Food and Beverage Manager of InterContinental Istanbul. Wow, what an opportunity to work in a 5-star hotel again. Finally, the traditional count down came to an end and when I was in the bus, I looked back at the memories recorded in my mind the past 20 months and it was just like a quick rewind of a video film. I must say that the days serving in the military service did not pass quickly at all.

July 1975 – Standing left to right; Ali Ihsan, Husnu Usta, Me, Husamettin, Kemal, Recai, Huseyin Usta, Ali Riza, Cevdet.
Sitting left to right; Ibrahim Sonmez, Elmaci, Huseyin.

A few days later, Mr Tinmaz himself interviewed me and I must admit that the recommendation was quite helpful. In a few minutes, I was given the position as an assistant pastry chef. My executive chef was Helmut Helwig and Herr Eisenbeis was the experienced opening pastry chef from Inter-Continental Hanover. I could never forget how he jumped up with joy when he saw my first French pastry platter. We had such a good time together. When his contract finished in two months, he went back to Hanover and I was promoted to the Pastry Chef position.

Shortly after, I entered my first competition at Ikonda Vienna and won my first gold medal. The following year, the management liked the sugar showpiece (a giant model of a hotel which I made for the official opening party) so much that they sent me to Inter-Continental Vienna for two months’ training.

During a strudel demonstration in the lobby.

In 1977 my first marriage was with Mine Pere. The next day morning after my wedding, I flew to Vienna for the training. I came back later from the training with lots of new European influenced ideas, and it helped me to upgrade myself and the products we do. In the meantime, I was also making small sugar figurines at home with my neighbours’ help. Eventually, this business turned out to be quite lucrative.

Birthday party of Food & Beverage Manager Mr. Taci Tinmaz.

After three successful career years has passed and the 1979 hospitality industry turmoil, which caused endless strikes, I was prepared to move on. Our first child was stillborn and sometime after that, my ex-wife Mine was again pregnant with our son Orcun. My ex-mother-in-law ( famous Turkish opera singer Nevin Pere) believed somehow that the medical facility was much better in Europe and she persuaded us to move. I called Chef Helmut, and he found me a job at Inter-Continental Dusseldorf as pastry chef. A few months later, I received a letter from the German embassy stating “your visa application has been approved”. I considered myself very fortunate for it was not easy that time in Turkey to get a work permit in Germany.

It was really interesting to travel over 3000km by bus and see lots of things which I had never had the chance to experience if I were to travel by air. There was no war then, and to travel from Turkey to Germany I had to pass through Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Austria. When I arrived at the Human Resource office of the Inter-Continental hotel, there was a big surprise waiting for me. As the official correspondence and red tape matters took too long between the consulates of Germany and Istanbul, they hired another pastry chef. My goodness! I was there, jobless and it was the biggest shock of my life. Luckily the Human Resource manager Herr Dossman helped me to start immediately as an assistant pastry chef at its sister hotel Dusseldorf Hilton.

My Executive Chef was Gunther Scherrer and he was the most demanding chef I had ever worked with. He was so amazed that I was able to finish 7 large butter sculptures in just a few days. The young Pastry Chef Norbert Maushagen left for Canada 3 months later and again I was promoted to Pastry Chef in a short while.

My first centerpiece displayed on a grand piano.

One of my large butter sculpture (Asterix).

In early 1980 I attended the Pastry Chef seminar in Vienna Hilton and Walter Glocker conducted it. There were 20 Pastry Chefs from all around the world and I must say it was very educating. On the 27th of February 1980, my eldest son Orcun was born and at that time, we were still living in a one-room apartment at the staff lodge. My reputation grew and a year later I started receiving phone calls and letters from Biancalio Corporate of Inter-Continental hotel. Obviously, they have regretted sending me to Hilton and requested for me to work for them. For me, it was fair enough as they were the people responsible for getting all the red tape done to enable me to work in Germany. Besides the offer was better and I took the job.

20 Pastry Chefs from around the world gathered in Vienna to attend Walter Glocker’s ( 4th from top) 10 day work shop.

Executive Chef Gunter Scherrer (5th from right) and his crew with famous restaurateur Rudolf Katzenberger (6th from right). This photo was taken during Katzenberger’s one week promotion in San Francisco Restaurant.

The first good thing was, we moved from the Hilton staff lodge to a proper 3 bedroom house. When I started working in the pastry, my Executive Chef was kind enough to let me convert the small storeroom into an office. Shortly after that, I appointed my assistant Achim Mehler and everything went very smooth, for we enjoyed the next few co-operative and creative years together. Achim was part of the exchange program from East Germany when the wall was still there. On the 17th of September 1982 my second son Serkan was born.

At that time, I was quite crazy about wines and I attended many wine tasting seminars. Getting medals from the Carnival Princess was a yearly event. If somebody were to ask me today what was the most exquisite piece I have ever produced, surely I would mention the 3-metre high Japanese sugar pagoda in Mainz for the “sports des ball” event. About 3000 people including the Prime Minister and all the Olympic medallists had to pay 500 German Mark each to support the sports events held in Germany. I had been personally invited to produce this piece. I worked 7 days for the 3 minutes presentation. I was very proud when my piece, was paraded in the function room during the desert presentation.

Presenting a sugar centrepiece to the Carnival Princess

I worked 5 full “hands-on” years in this hotel till one fateful day, I received a call from my ex-manager of Istanbul Hilton. He asked me to join him for the opening of Pan Pacific Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I went to the library to do some research on this beautiful Asian country. Besides me, a couple of my ex-colleagues from Istanbul Hilton, Mr Erhan Bursa as F&B director and Birol Kaymaz financial director, were also going there. I took up the challenge for my second opening and this time, I signed my contract as Executive Pastry Chef for a five stars hotel. At our farewell party with my good friend Kemal, we opened a bottle of Magnum Perrier Jouet, which was presented to me a short while ago in appreciation for my blown sugar centrepiece of the replica piece, which was exhibited at the Champagne museum in France.

3 metre high sugar pagoda carried in to the ball room by hand by students of the ballet school

My sugar painting of Houston InterContinental hotel. With Executive Chef Egon Hoffman

I produced a Large Galleon Centerpiece out of Pastillage. It was well received and attracted all the customers dining at the Rotisserie Restaurant

That was really a new page in my life. It was a very different feeling; my income has tripled, working first time in Asia as an expatriate. It was raining heavily with thunder when we arrived at Shangri-la Kuala Lumpur hotel. I faced a total culture shock; with a totally new lifestyle, environment, food and people. At that time the Pan Pacific hotel was still under construction and thus, myself and the rest of the management staff had to work at the opening office. My Executive Chef Werner Meyer was a Swiss with working experience in Asia. He trusted me from the first day and allowed me to work the way I want to be most productive and creative.

After three months of preparations, interviews, recruitment and classroom training we took over the hotel. From the first day, I had problems with my English language. Jiuan was a real help to me for she was the only one who understood German and got the message through to the staff. I believed that my staff appreciated that they could learn a few things from me right from the start. I had never worked with such an ambitious team before. With everybody’s help especially Jiuan’s administrative input we achieved a very high standard and made “La Patisserie” a very popular pastry shop in town.

With the numerous competition awards and medals, I was even featured in the TV news, local and overseas newspapers. Here was the start of my international career, especially after I have bagged the “Best Artist” award from the Igeho competition in Switzerland. My family also enjoyed our 3 connecting corner suite rooms at the hotel. On many occasions, I had the opportunity to socialize with the diplomats. If I were not in Kuala Lumpur, I would never dream of meeting the Turkish President Kemal Evren and present him one of my sugar centrepieces. The day came again that I had to move on and I got my transfer to the Pan Pacific Hotel in Singapore.

With the Press just before I left for Switzerland. I was giving the details of my competing pieces.

A big crowd welcomed us when we arrived at the Subang Airport from Switzerland.

With Chef Meyer and GM Jean Wasser.

During a training session.

This two-year-old hotel was located at Marina Square and the General Manager was Mr Jean Wasser, who was also my previous General Manager from Kuala Lumpur. I carried on doing my famous novelty cakes at “La Patisserie” while competing with all the other hotels to uphold a certain level of pastry standard in Singapore. This competition streak was also an “addiction” in Singapore. In 1990 I received the Best Pastry Chef Award. I decided not to compete, any more after I received an invitation to judge in the same competition.

For the longest time, I had thoughts of opening my own business and with that in mind, I turned down the corporate Pastry Chef position from Hong Kong Hilton. On the 1st. August 1991, I incorporated Yener Pty Ltd with Jiuan as my partner. I felt like I was in the middle of the ocean and I jumped into my small boat from someone else’s cruiser. Mr David Cheong, the owner of Win Sin kindly offered me the classroom space at his premises for conducting my courses and producing special cakes.

With Chef Blanchard.

During Christmas we organised a competition. Whoever guessed the closest weight of the giant Yule Log cake will win a prize.

At that time, Win Sin was the main pastry ingredient supplier in Singapore. Mr Cheong spent a few million dollars on his brand new showcase factory which included a perfectly designed comfortable demonstration room to accommodate 12 hands-on students at a time. My joint venture with Mr Cheong worked out well and in a short while, my reputation increased and one of my most important clients was the Sultan of Brunei. The students both local and overseas were constantly filling up the classes.

I enjoyed working as my own boss for over a year till I decided that it’s better for us to move on to another country where we can settle down for good. Australia was the best option over the USA and Canada and I could no longer resist the long-pending offer from Hotel Conrad Jupiters on the Gold Coast.

My Executive Chef Gunther Karch sent his Sous Chef Volker Kopke to pick us up from the Brisbane airport on the 21st of December 1992 upon my arrival. On the following day, which was 3 days before Christmas, I started working and it wasn’t easy even though the kitchen was well prepared for the festive event. This giant hotel, operated by Hilton, welcomes on average over seven thousand guests daily. It has 6 restaurants, 1000 sitting banquet capacity plus the largest casino in Queensland. That was the biggest baby I have ever cared for in my entire working experience. Every day, 20 over staff looked to me and asked, “What do I do now”. That wouldn’t be an easy question to answer if I didn’t have a well-organized kitchen with its proper station delegations and duty rostering system. My first task was to simplify the operation by separating the kitchen’s 5 distinguished stations and to deal with them like individual departments.

During those 5 years we had hundreds of challenging ideas, menus, events and of course also some “show off” events. Every one of our X’Mas lunch buffets and chalet sales of Christmas goodies always outsold the previous years. The dessert for the Indy ball where I created chocolate “tyre-like” marks on each plate was one of the ideas, which will never be forgotten.

Occasionally I also taught sugar and chocolate art at TAFE College. Years passed and the time came for us to look forward to new challenges.

After 8 months of regular home meetings, my assistant Pastry Chef Martin Reisch and myself decided to go into our own business venture. On the 14th of August 1996, we registered our company Yenmart Pastry Art. Surprisingly, Conrad Jupiters management agreed to allow us to continue to work at the hotel. We found a nice front shop in Bundall and for the next 18 months we continued working at Conrad whilst we built our shop from scratch. At midnight on the 31st of December 1997, we celebrated our last day of work at Conrad Jupiters and our new venture with bottles of champagne. On the following morning we had only the little shop to worry about.

With Executive Chef Gunther Karch.

A street performing artist sprayed with chocolate surprised guests when he suddenly moved during a service.

Christmas dessert buffet was presented with a different theme every year.

Gold Coast skyline out of Ginger Bread.

Santa’s sugar train filled with goodies.

First shop in Bundall, Southport.

Here we go! I was again in a small boat off the shore. Found a beautiful front shop on a busy street in the middle of Bundall. This was a good place to rest ashore.

The shop’s front windows were covered with paper whilst we produced more than 45 sample cakes and showpieces with a lot of passion in the kitchen. On Monday the 3rd of March 1997, we took the paper off the windows. Gold Coast had the pleasure of viewing realistic-looking novelty cakes that they had never seen before. Yenmart Pastry Art’s aim was to deliver a wide range of products from wedding cakes, birthday cakes, table centrepieces and any other custom made designs with a reasonable price and excellent service. We said to our customers “if you can dream it, we can do it”. Our product range was limited only by people’s imagination. We also produced frozen cakes and desserts made to order for hotels and restaurants. We served our customers for over ten years in this location. We then moved to Central Dr, Burleigh Heads for production and opened a retail shop at Broadbeach.

Standing: Serkan Yener, Martin Reisch, Orcun Yener. Sitting: Jiuan and Serdar Yener.

At the end of our 3 years lease, we moved again to another shop just around the corner at Hutchinson Street, Burleigh Heads. This time we purchased a 400 square naked factory and built everything from scratch according to local council requirements. After 4 and a half years, we decided to close our Broadbeach retail shop. We (Martin & myself) also decided to go our separate ways. Meaning we would operate as two separate companies and continue to work in the same building. My family and I continued our activities as Yeners Cakes.

Central Dr, Burleigh Heads

Retail shop in Broadbeach.

Our kitchen at Hutchinson St, Burleigh Heads. (AFTER)

Our kitchen at Hutchinson St, Burleigh Heads. (BEFORE)

We moved to Hutchinson street early in 2009 as Yenmart Pastry Art. This move would be our final relocation. We started everything from scratch and carefully designed each component of the building accordingly. Thanks to Martin, my family and all our friends, for working so hard during the construction. We even built in a second floor with a raised platform which added 140 square working and storing space.

Planning a cake.

My wife Jiuan in the office.

From 2011 July onwards, we were Yeners Cakes and we emphasized more on wedding and novelty cakes. We were involved in almost every Wedding Expo on the Gold Coast and Brisbane. Just like the fashion world, we also had to update ourselves with the latest designs & trends in the wedding cake space. Certain designs that we did and was very popular a few years ago is out of fashion today. Updating ourselves with the help of the internet, an open mind and learning from others became a daily affair. We regularly added new designs to our website and portfolio. Having a good informative website and working on it regularly is a big priority these days. My son Serkan was always interested and involved in IT and made a lot of this possible.

On the 1st of April 2014, we launched our new website Yeners Way. A place for all cake enthusiasts to learn cake decorating or improve their cake decorating skills. Over a year in the making, my son Serkan and I put this website together from scratch to be an ideal platform for us to share and teach cake decorating ideas and techniques that we have been using for years.

Years of working in international hotel chains, participating and judging in international competitions and primarily producing wedding and birthday cakes for over 15 years in our family business, we have gathered an extensive accumulation of tricks and techniques. I have always had it in the back of my mind to write a book (or books) about all the acquired pastry knowledge in my life. Thanks to today’s information and technology age, I have decided not to go into book writing just yet but instead, share and impart my knowledge through Yeners Way. We also produce regular videos for our YouTube channel Yeners Cake Tips followed by 250000 subscribers. 2016 it was time for us to make the big move which is only worried about our followers and subscribers. We sold our part of the factory and continue working from our residence/studio.
From then onwards we were able to focus on attention to detail, with the simple and clear teaching style. Our aim is and will to make learning the art of cake decorating easy and accessible for everyone with downloadable blueprints and templates.