Wolverhampton man serves up a storm to land Dubai job

Paul Hayward, 45, from Burnham Avenue, Oxley, in Wolverhampton, is now the pastry chef at the Madinat Jumeirah hotel in Dubai.

Mr Hayward, started his career at the Renaissance Restaurant in Coven, on a youth training scheme from Wolverhampton College, before later moving onto the Mount Hotel in Tettenhall where he was encouraged to move on and work in London – where he landed roles at the Hilton, Mayfair, Ritz, Mandarin Oriental and QE2 in between.

He said: "I always loved to see my grandmother and mother baking and loved the fact you could make something special from basic ingredients and bring smiles to so many people.

"It's a passion of mine – 110 per cent.

"You cannot do this job if you don’t love what you do.

"It's been a very long hard road but well worth the effort, but even now I'm still working my butt off."

The pastry chef, who previously worked at the Express & Star as a paperboy for three years from the age of 13, said the job was very rewarding.

He added: "I chose being a pastry chef as my career route as I loved creating masterpieces out of raw basic ingredients and I wanted to travel around the world and experience as much in life as possible."

Mr Hayward who has been named Pastry Chef of the Year by both Pro Chef Middle East and Caterer Middle East over last few years, is now responsible for more than 80 pastry and bakery chefs across four hotels, along with a conference centre comprising of five pastry and bakery kitchens, a cake artist kitchen, 50 restaurants, bars and food outlets and a pastry banquet kitchen which caters for up to 5,000 people at a time.

The Wolverhampton-born chef said his next goal is to focus on training, teaching and doing cooking demonstrations.