From A ‘D’ Student To Becoming a Success Story: Meet Chef Daniel Mungai.

Meet Chef Daniel Mungai. The 45 year old father of two runs his own bakery school, an outside catering firm, a production house and a studio.

So how did his journey begin? He admits to The People that while in school he was a ‘D’ student. He later joined a college to study accounting. But that didn’t last long as the allure of being a Nairobi matatu tout caught up with him.

“Those days it was the in-thing to be a tout. We would get a lot of money and attention.” Eventually life caught up with him when he got badly beaten in a case of mistaken identity in a matatu feud.

A Good Samaritan rescued him and offered him a ride out of the city.

It later turned out that the Good Samaritan was a driver at the Kilimanjaro buffalo lodge in amboseli. He dropped Daniel off at the hotel and asked the management to offer him a job. He was first taken to the accounting department as he did have a small background in it.

Not pleased with his performance he was later taken to the kitchen and was given a job in the dish washing section. It was while at the kitchen that he tasted the food, which was so good that he made up his mind that cooking is what he wanted to do.

One month later, Utalii College sent letters inviting 3 people for a 3 week refresher course.

He states that that is the only training he has had in being a chef. He went back to the Kilimanjaro Buffalo lodge where he worked for another 5 years, and rose up from being a cook to a pastry chef.

Tired of living in the wild, he came back to Nairobi and made several phone calls to different five star hotels inquiring whether they had any vacancies for chefs. One chef mike of the then grand regency had no vacancies but referred him to chef mullan, head chef of the Norfolk.

After successfully passing the cooking test, he was hired by the Norfolk hotel. He has since worked in several other high end hotels such Nairobi safari club as a larder chef, Green Corner, New Stanley and Twigs, which specialized in cakes and desserts.

Frustrated by working for other people he decided to go solo. He had no capital to begin his own venture and had to rely on his wife to feed him for 3 years. He realized that hotels were quite poor in baking and decide to focus on that niche market. He began by baking with a charcoal jiko, and on several occasions the cakes would collapse as he didn’t know how to regulate the heat. He eventually opened up a shop in kahawa west, but had to close it as he couldn’t afford the rent.

Eventually he did manage to open up Emma Daniel creations, his own bakery school.

The school trains over 200 students in a year in food production and baking. The school also offers scholarships to more than half his students.

In conclusion, never give up hope. Even when you have nothing always know life somehow manages to work itself out.

Courtesy: The People

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