In Denmark, she is just starting to make a name for herself, but in Italy, Melissa Forti is a rock star. People travel from all over the world to eat her Tiramisu. And they cry when it is sold out. Meet the smalltown baker who took the baking world by storm with limitless dedication, but still must fight to prove herself as she is still, just… a woman.
“Let me be honest. When people tell me: Oh my God, you followed your dreams… Listen, I did not! This was never my dream!” Melissa Forti’s voice rises slightly over the soft music and casual chit-chatter of her newly opened Café Duse in Copenhagen. She looks around, slightly shy suddenly, and then her voice falls calm again.
“Let me explain,” she offers. “This is not your typical story about falling in love with cooking at an early age. My mom hated to cook. My dad left when I was little. I never stood at my grandmother’s stove. I never even met my grandmother.” She sighs softly, then her passionate smile takes over. “I was never this little girl who grew up dreaming about baking cakes. I was a mess of a teenager who grew up not knowing who I was or wanted to become. I started traveling because I wanted to escape my reality. I did not have money to travel and learn languages. So, I just moved and worked. I did not know where. Or how. I just went,” she giggles. “And now, here we are.”
Not your average baker - or woman
Melissa Forti is not your average baker. Nor your average woman. She is edgy, passionate, opinionated and a wonderful mix of classic beauty and rock star tattoos. Her baking talent is matched by few people in this world. Yet she remains relatively unknown on the world stage. Using natural ingredients, intuition, and playfulness, she bakes beautiful cakes rooted in Italian tradition, seasoned with personal twists of her own. For the past 15 years, she has been a star in Italy. She had two cake shops, and a tea room, that attracted customers from Germany and Scandinavia, written two books, and gathered a dedicated fan following on Social Media.
And now she is in Copenhagen, ready to win over a new audience with the most recent fruit of her labor, her lavish art-deco-inspired Café Duse at Hotel 25 Copenhagen. “I have been working on this for 5 years,” she says as she gazes lovingly around. “Interior, decor, the way they serve guests, right down to the presentation of our beautiful cakes. I have this compulsive disorder thing,” she laughs jokingly. “Expressing all my feelings and serving it to you guys. I feel like this place is part of me.”
“It may seem quite posh,” she says pointing at the silverware on the table, “but I want it to be down to earth. Luxury should not be a rare treat. You should always eat well, drink well and be with the people you love. Share food, share the love. I want this to be a place where you go on a gloomy winter afternoon in Copenhagen. To sit with a book, to relax, or in front of your computer to work. Come in your jeans and sneakers, relax, and be pampered in a nice environment. We want to offer you an experience.”
Faith dealt the cards
As she speaks so soulfully about her path, her eyes shimmer with intent and purpose. And here comes the greatest paradox of Melissa Forti’s character. All of this. This space. Even her past achievements. Did not come out of a bigger dream or some greater plan. It just sort of happened, she admits. As if by accident. Or fate.
Born in Rome, Melissa Forti has lived in London, Los Angeles, and numerous places around the world. Yet, she eventually found peace in a busy life in a small village of 2200 people in beautiful Northeastern Italy. “I found myself having to restart my life,” she explains honestly. “I had been all over the world. I had worked all sorts of jobs. I always felt like nothing I did was connected. I had some savings and a chance to take a year off. I was 32 and finally had a chance to find out what I wanted to do when I grew up. I started reading, I traveled, I enjoyed nature, and I started to listen to the microcosm around me. Sometimes when you simply stop to listen, you are actually creating. And becoming.”
It was during this period, in 2007 that fate and purpose struck Forti. She was in New York with her boyfriend at the time. And somehow, the girl who had previously sworn she would never bake in her life, found herself inside a five-story cake decorating shop. Absolutely overwhelmed. “It looked like a paint shop,” she recalls excitedly. “I fell in love with the color palettes. I spent an hour there. Simply amazed. I felt guilty about not buying anything, so I bought some small sugary things and decorations,” she smiles.
This is not your typical story about falling in love with cooking at an early age.
10,000 Euros in my pocket
“When I came back to my little village, on a rainy Sunday, I baked my first cupcakes,” she continues, “and they were disgusting,” she bluntly howls with laughter. “Can you maybe try another recipe, My boyfriend suggested diplomatically. So, I tried another recipe. And we both thought, man these are great!”
“Suddenly,” her eyes start to sparkle as her tale gathers speed, “I was mesmerized. This was what I wanted to do. I went to England and the US, and participated in a number of masterclasses to improve my skills. I came back with only 10,000 Euros in my pocket. Nothing, really. But I wanted to open my own place. I was hooked. So on a forgotten street in town, I found the only place I could afford. My boyfriend thought I was crazy. But it was my only option. If all went shit, I would have lost 10.000 EURO. So what?”
I came back with only 10,000 Euros in my pocket. Nothing, really. But I wanted to open my own place. I was hooked.
“I would get to this crammed little space alone early in the morning and just bake. As fast as I could,” she races on through her tale.” At lunch time I would start selling my baked goods from the same little space. In just four months, I broke even, and had to hire five people to keep up with the line outside the door. After four years, I opened a boutique shop in the center of town, just to see if there was a difference in income. It exploded. I opened a third place, my first tearoom, I started working on my first book, and… whew, well, it has been tough,” she concludes on her first years as a baker.
It’s a man’s world
There is an earnestness to the piercing gaze of the troubled baker as she speaks. She leaves no doubt that achieving the dream she never thought she had has been tough. And unlike many, she does nothing to sugarcoat her adventure and even the business. “It has been tough,” she readily admits. “You try to punch through, but you are still ‘just’ a woman… And it is not always easy. The food industry is mainly male-dominated.”
“I have been fortunate to travel a lot and see a lot of Michelin kitchens. I always step in very humbly. Yet, they look at my tattoos and go: oh, she bakes cakes,” she imitates in mocking condescendment, “she looks kinda edgy. So she is not good. I have to work so much harder to prove myself. When in fact, I am proud of the fact that many Michelin chefs could not bake my cakes,” she giggles but soon turns somber, “but it’s hard. It is very hard. Especially when as a foreigner, I sometimes hear: What are you doing in our country? These days, I merely reply: I am trying to conquer it.”
You try to punch through, but you are still ‘just’ a woman… And it is not always easy.
Conquered she has. In her own special way. Even though it would have been so easy for Melissa Forty to just accept defeat, she has always pressed on. When she was not sure how to go about getting her book published, she simply sent 5-600 emails to publishers around the world. “I did not know it was not the way to do things,” she says. “Apparently you need an agent and apparently my tattoos and dark image were a problem. But eventually, after two long years, another strong woman picked up on my brief.”
Likewise, when German celebrity chef Tim Raue famously claimed that baking isn’t cooking and tried to prove his point, she simply smiled as he humiliated himself on German TV failing to reproduce her Tiramisu. And she keeps smiling to this day as people from Germany desire to try her Tiramisu.
“I suppose I have just always gone my own ways,” she shrugs with a smile. There is no bitterness in her voice. Just determination. “And really, that is the way it should be. Young people sometimes ask me what advice I would them? How do we start a business? I don’t know. The only thing I feel like telling you is just...Whatever you do, do not stand still. Just move. Take a rest sometimes. Take a few days off. But move. Always. Read. Talk. Travel. Do whatever you must. If you don’t move, you die. When you move, you create energy. And when energy flows, something happens.
