Little Venice Cake Company Founder Mich Turner Shares Her Sweet Success Story
Culinary extraordinaire Mich Turner MBE charts her journey from her home economics class to being awarded an MBE for her services to the British catering industry and baking James Bond’s wedding cake
She has baked culinary masterpieces for The Queen, Madonna, Pierce Brosnan and everyone in between – yes, Mich Turner MBE, Founder of Little Venice Cake Company, can create a wedding cake to end all wedding cakes. Having recently opened her first regional atelier in Atlantis The Royal, she tells Harper’s Bazaar Bride how, with 40,000 delicious sponges under her belt to date, she came to be where she is today.
Upon entering Dubai’s Little Venice Cake Company atelier, past the busy bakers in the stunning glass kitchen, you reach the serene consultation room and “Royal Wall of Fame,” as Mich puts it. “I like to say it’s the good, the great, the rich and the royal,” she jests, as everyone from Barack Obama to King Charles beams next to their delicious sponge. But Mich’s very first client was from somewhat humbler beginnings. “My A-Level home economics teacher asked me to make her wedding cake when I was 17,” she says. Having just won a cookery competition the same teacher had encouraged her to enter, she confidently accepted the challenge. “It was the very first wedding cake I made, baked and decorated,” Mich says, it was one of her first successes. “She still has the little flower arrangement I made for the top tier and keeps it in a little glass dome.”
Mich continued to bake wedding cakes in her spare time while qualifying as a food scientist at university and securing placements with McVities and Marks & Spencer’s Christmas cake production. She joined Harvey Nichols as a supplier, then buyer: “I took the time to learn a lot about brand values, how to run a business and manage staff and all of those elements. I had the science side and creativity from within, but I needed to understand business before I took the leap of faith [to begin my own company] in 1999.”
It was within that first year of setting up Little Venice Cake Company that Mich received the commission for Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s wedding cake. “At that time, it was an absolute niche market. Cake companies at the time would bake, but wouldn’t deliver,” Mich says. This is when Little Venice Cake Company really set the gold standard for all artists that followed. Working with major London hotels, Mich made upwards of 30 wedding cakes a week, every single one with a different base, filling, frosting, decoration and delivery. “We’ve never missed a deadline,” Mich states.
She even implemented a failsafe system to avoid London’s frequent weekend city marches and road closures. “We had a hotline to the city of Westminster so we knew where the road closures were and did a risk assessment each time,” she laughs.
It’s this attention to detail that spread Mich’s name far and wide on the wedding circuit. In 2001 a florist acquaintance recommended Little Venice Cake Company to none other than James Bond at the time, Pierce Brosnan, as he wedded Keely in Ireland’s Ballintubber Abbey. “I sent cake samples to Pierce and Keeley in Malibu by FedEx, so they could actually taste it and approve the recipe,” she says. Working with them to create a beautiful six-tier carrot cake with elegant hand piping on each tier, Mich also insisted on building an identical polystyrene replica – just in case of any damage in transit. Thankfully, it wasn’t needed.
Working with clients to provide the perfect focal point for photographs is always a warm experience for Mich, but there is one cake in particular that she remembers fondly. “The diamond wedding anniversary cake that we took to Buckingham Palace to celebrate The Queen and Prince Philip’s diamond wedding anniversary was particularly special,” she reminisces. Taking direct inspiration from Her Majesty’s wedding gown, the detailing took days, and to Mich’s surprise, she was awarded an MBE by the Queen for her services to the British catering industry.
As she brings her expertise here, Mich delights in a whole new level of extravagance. “The Middle Eastern market love the idea of having a super spectacular wedding cake,” she says, something she embraced for the opening of Atlantis The Royal Dubai. That cake took over 2,000 hours to create, stood five feet tall and was aptly called the ‘feast of dreams’ cake.
The region may indulge in opulence, but how do tastes differ? “We use a lot of dates and pistachios, and we’re growing our sticky toffee date cake, in which we stuff dates on the top and fill with a salted caramel centre and lots of pistachios,” says Mich. Any last advice on choosing the perfect wedding cake? “Sugar flowers will last pretty much indefinitely,” Mich smiles. What sweeter token for everlasting love could a couple wish for?
Images: Supplied
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s Bride Spring/Summer 2024 issue.