He might be one of Sydney’s favourite young bakers now, but Khanom House’s Yeen Veerasenee’s hospitality path was far from conventional. It started back home in Thailand, when he worked at the same guest house as his mother.
“And I learned English there,” he says. “Then I started working in hotels part-time – during uni – before moving to Sydney in 2015.”
But Veerasenee soon found that hotels were in the wrong part of the hospitality world for him.
“I worked in hotels here for years, but I was like – it’s just too formal for me,” says Veerasenee. “I needed something relaxed and more casual, maybe a café.”
Discovering baking after hours
Soon enough he found himself a job as a barista at Skittle Lane, in the CBD. And though he learned how to make a mean flat-white, the more interesting stuff was happening after service, when he’d get home and teach himself how to bake.
Every week I would make something, create something – from cookbooks or just watching Instagram.”
Yeen Veerasenee → Owner, Khanom House
“All my family cooks and does Thai dessert, but we don’t bake at home because in Thailand, most kitchens don’t have ovens,” he says. “But we use a lot of pandan, a lot of coconut and palm sugar back home. So I started doing Asian-inspired baking in a French-style, with some Australian things too.”
From market stall to momentum
Before long he was ready to take his cakes to market – by selling them at his local market. Veerasenee would sell at markets around Sydney, and pretty soon he went from chasing customers to having customers chase him.
“It just blew up,” he says. “Customers at the market would ask, “Where’s your shop?” – I knew the home kitchen wasn’t working anymore.”
The new era demanded a new name, so The Baking Lists – his market name – became Khanom House.
“I wanted something unique and short that related to my heritage,” Veerasenee says. “Then I came up with khanom, which kind of means dessert in Thai – like a snack or something sweet.”
That was at the start of this year. And now, 8000 slices (and counting) of honey layer cake later – and who knows how many doughnuts – the Chippendale community has embraced him. And just like at the markets, people are crossing town for a taste, too.
I love Chippendale and the community is lovely. There’s a lot of young creatives and it’s bringing people from the suburbs to come in as well.”
Yeen Veerasenee → Owner, Khanom House
“We always support each other in any way.”
A local favourite, fast
It’s been around for less than a year, but it’s already hard to think about what Chippendale would look like without it. When the right place opens at the right time, it can feel like it’s been in the neighbourhood forever.
Khanom House was doing great business and pulling big crowds, but Veerasenee was still waiting for one final tick of approval from his family back in Thailand.
“Mum came in March,” he says. “She’s proud.”
Want to know more about how Khanom House found the right neighbourhood to call home? Watch the Inner City episode of our video series Good Neighbours. ->
