A Tale of Two Countries
Iranian American Culinary Entrepreneurs Give Thanks to Their Bay Area Adopted Home
This fall, as Hosna Tavakoli and Pooneh Yamini, two Iranian American food industry entrepreneurs in our area, watched videos of growing protests in the streets of Tehran and of women in Iran (and around the world) burning head scarves to protest the Iranian regime, they were both reminded of how circumscribed and fearful their own lives growing up in Tehran had been at times.
The protests, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s “morality police,” reminded Tavakoli that the exact same thing could have happened to her. “I have been in a morality police van. I have been given the lectures,” says Tavakoli. “My friends [in the Bay Area] and I speak about how it could have been any of us. We are fortunate it was not, and we are thankful.”
But the women’s memories of their early lives in Iran are not all terror-filled. There are many sweet, family-filled memories as well, many of them around childhood favorite foods. Tavakoli fondly remembers banana-walnut cake and other traditional Iranian desserts. Yamini says she was known in her family as the girl who loved cream puffs. It is the feelings evoked by sharing special foods with their families that each now draws upon in her respective culinary endeavors in their mutual adopted Bay Area home.
Both Yamini, whose chocolate confections business and chocolate and pastry-making classes are based in Mill Valley, and Tavakoli, who launched her business in Sausalito, have turned the gustatory joys of their childhoods into careers.
Tavakoli, founder of Zibatreats, a high-end cake business currently based in San Francisco’s Bayview District, was born in the United States but raised in Tehran. She returned to the United States as a young woman. Yamini, owner of Mon Rêve Chocolate Studio located in the Mill Valley Lumber Yard, was born in Berkeley, but her parents moved the family back to their homeland when she was a small child. Yamini returned to the United States for college, but went back to Tehran as a young professional. “Working in Iran was very challenging and required major creative thinking to work around all the restrictions. Can you imagine? I had to advertise for skincare products without showing any skin! Back when I started, it wasn’t allowed,” says Yamini.
Beyond spending much of their childhoods in Iran, the two women also share an entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic that is evident in their current enterprises.
Zibatreats
As a girl in Tehran, Hosna Tavakoli had a sweet tooth, but her mother was not a baker, so she took it upon herself to learn to make the cakes and other baked sweets she desired. “I have been baking since I was 12,” says Tavakoli. “Everything I baked tasted good, so I became the one who always baked for family gatherings.”
Tavakoli was an architect and designer here in the United States [clearly evident in some of her elaborate cake designs] when the pandemic hit. Working at home, she had more time to pour into her baking hobby, experimenting with layered cakes and lavish decorations. She made cakes for her friends and family celebrations and received such positive feedback that she began advertising her cakes to a larger audience under the name Zibatreats. At first it was just a side hustle, but demand for her cakes grew quickly. Within a few months she was receiving three cake orders a day.
“I wanted to make sure the pattern would last before I quit my other job. It did! So, I rented a commercial kitchen in Bayview and hired my first employee,” says Tavakoli. Now a quick Google search for “custom organic cakes, Bay Area” puts Zibatreats at number one or two on the “Top Ten” lists, and Tavakoli has hired two employees. She works long hours to meet demand, a problem she is happy to have. Zibatreats custom cakes often feature elegant ruffles, and parents love the children’s custom birthday cakes because of their especially adorable decorations.
Tavakoli believes part of the reason her cakes are popular is because they are inspired by the lighter desserts of her childhood and are not as sugary as the average American cake. “The frosting is made with whipping cream, not the thicker and sweeter buttercream frosting, so they are lighter, and less sweet,” says Tavakoli, who also makes vegan, keto and gluten-free versions of her cakes. “I use organic ingredients, so they are healthier and tastier than most cakes available.”
The most popular Zibatreats cake? “The most popular is definitely the tiramisu with banana and walnut,” says Tavakoli, a cake inspired by that favorite Iranian dessert of her childhood, banana and walnut cake, but with an added twist.
Mon Rêve
In her mid-40s, Pooneh Yamini was ready to start a new chapter. “It felt like I went through a midlife renewal phase. I wanted to work again, but this time I wanted to do something I was truly passionate about.” The desire to cultivate a dream brought Yamini back to the joy that desserts had brought her as a child. She had always had a deep appreciation for the delicate and refined French patisserie, so she followed her taste buds and traveled to Paris to learn everything she could from the masters.
Yamini attended courses and workshops at various renowned institutions in Europe, including L’École Lenôtre in Paris, as well as Le Cordon Bleu in London, before completing the five-month Intensive Professional Pastry Program at the L’École Ferrandi in Paris. “Being away from my kids for so long, getting bullied by the chef and working extra hard as I was twice the age of everyone else in the class was no fun! But I absolutely loved everything I was learning and couldn’t wait to share it all back home.”
Upon returning to the United States, Yamini interned at San Francisco’s Arsicault Bakery—where, in her opinion, the croissants are even better than in France—and then refined her chocolate-making skills under Kriss Harvey of Beverly Hills and Melissa Coppel of Las Vegas. Her goal was to simplify the traditional techniques and make the art of French patisserie and chocolate confectionary accessible to all.
Ready to apply her trade in her hometown of Mill Valley, Yamini opened Mon Rêve Chocolate Art Studio in February 2020… just as the pandemic struck. “Well, it was difficult. Of course, I couldn’t hold in-person classes as I wished to do, so for a time I did chocolate production, just to stay afloat, especially for the holidays,” she says. Soon enough she adapted, recognizing that she could host virtual private and corporate pastry and chocolate courses online.
Now Yamini holds both in-person and virtual classes through Mon Rêve, teaching both chocolate and pastry-making, as she shares the “secrets” of French confections and baking. “Any time I get doubtful about my business, I think of Julia Child, who brought French cooking to the United States, and think, ‘If Julia can do it, I can too!’”
[Editor’s note: It is our intent and hope that publishing the stories of these two courageous, talented and hardworking Iranian American women—each an important member of the culinary community in the Bay Area—will inspire others, both here and in other countries, to follow their dreams. It is also our hope that the women living in Iran will someday very soon live as freely as Yamini and Tavakoli.]
MonReveChoc.com
All Mon Rêve photographs by Pamela Casaudoumecq Photography
