From glossy mags to French pastries

Wednesday, 11 October 2023

Gina Park was a fashion editor, but now creates delicious pastries in Christchurch.

The sweet, delicate pastries look like the work of someone who’s been finessing the art of pastry cheffing for years.

In reality, Christchurch’s Gina Park only mastered the creation of decadent treats in the last year, after a long career editing fashion pages for high-end glossy magazines.

Park said it’s taken her one year of intense research, training and trialling to become what she is today, the founder of Pebbles patisserie and a regular stall holder at the Christchurch Farmers’ Market.

She spent a year learning and trialling how to make yummy treats.

“I’ve set up a test kitchen in a storage lock-up work space. I bought a whole lot of equipment and paid for online classes from famous chefs.”

She also credits “tonnes and tonnes of cook books”, her mum who is an “amazing cook”, and friends with cafes who gave her the experience and confidence she needed to take the plunge into the world of hospitality.

It was a whirlwind of change for Park, who was working and living in Seoul with her husband before returning to her home town of Christchurch in 2017 when her father was diagnosed with cancer.

Park’s offerings include tarts, apple tarte tatin, basque cake, and galettes.

She lived in Christchurch, while her husband stayed in Seoul, with regular visits, until the end of 2021 when Park said, “we’re not going to do this any more, we’re going to wrap up everything and live our life”.

After they put down roots together in Christchurch, she said she wanted to “move away from the fashion field and create something of my own”.

“I was sick of shining someone else’s shoes.”

Park in the kitchen of her Riccarton-based business Pebbles Patisserie.

But just as she was due to have her second child and bring the idea of a patisserie business to the fore, her health took a hit.

“All of a sudden I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.”

In November, one month after a caesarean, she had surgery to remove her thyroid and 74 lymph nodes from her neck.

Park aims to create “something you imagine your French grandmother would make”.

Her health is being closely monitored at the moment, she said, “but otherwise it’s looking good”.

“It was very devastating, but it gave me a thought. So be it, I don’t give a f…, let’s just do it.”

And Pebbles was created.

It is geared towards catering and special occasions with a focus on cakes and French pastry - “lots of choux pastry and mousse cakes,” she said.

Tarts, apple tarte tatin, basque cake, and galettes come to mind for Park when she thinks about her offerings.

“Simple, homely French pastries that you just don’t see any more, but I love.

“Something you imagine your French grandmother would make when you get to her house.”