Philip Khoury is the award-winning Australian pastry chef making the most delectable patisserie from plants at Harrods. He started his career at Peter Gilmore’s Quay Restaurant, Shangri La Sydney with Anna Polyviou and ended up as head of Research and development with acclaimed Australian patissier Adriano Zumbo launching hundreds of patisserie lines in his native Australia.

After a number of years spent realising the food industry’s unsustainable reliance on animal exploitation he decided to begin tackling an area he had previously thought impossible: vegan pastry. He is now the resident plant-based expert and head pastry chef at Harrods, where he has introduced plant-based and allergen-friendly patisserie in addition to the iconic made-in-house ranges.

“When I am looking to introduce a new dessert to the range, we have numerous tastings where we go through a process of critique and refinement until it meets the standards,” he says.

“I will never say it is vegan beforehand because it needs to meet all our expectations and deliver on taste. That it’s plant-based is just a huge bonus.”