Andreea Apostol is beaming when we meet her in Hong Kong recently. Fresh from scooping up an A.A. Taste Award for her Raw Vegan Carrot Cake the night before at The W hotel in Hong Kong, she has come a long way in a short period of time.
Growing up in Romania with a fashion designer mum, food wasn’t a big part of her background. However, when she moved to Macau 11 years ago to follow her husband’s career, the adjustment wasn’t instant and, unable to work professionally due to work permits, she found inspiration in an unexpected source: watching Masterchef on television.
“I like competitions and this was a ‘wow’ moment for me,” she says.
Taking this inspiration into her own kitchen, Andreea started experimenting dishes on her husband, in the process, discovering a new side to herself – her passion for cooking.
Returning to Romania for a year, she enrolled in an intense cooking course, but once back in Macau, she found herself with the same work restrictions.
Nonetheless, she continued cooking and found her heritage drawing her to the sweeter side of things – in Romania desserts are a very important part of a meal, so she enrolled in cake making classes in Hong Kong.
In 2013, she opened a small homemade desserts and cake decorating business, Macau Sweet Ideas, which grew rapidly, something she attributes to a gap in the market, as well as her beautiful decorations, and, of course, the taste.
Around four years ago, Andreea started paying more attention to health and exercise, and on a trip to Romania, a friend suggested she try a raw vegan cake.
“Urgh, raw, vegan cake? I don’t think so,” Andreea recalls. “I just had one slice and I thought to myself, ‘this can change my life’”.
Returning to Macau, she started learning more about raw, vegan food. Raw food is food that has not been heated above 48C, preserving its enzymes.
“When the temperature is higher than 58C, we destroy many vitamins and nutrients, and when the temperature is higher than 100C, we can destroy 70% of the amino acids and antioxidants. So, raw food is living food, food in its natural state,” the chef explains.
Realizing she wanted to focus more on healthy eating, she closed Macau Sweet Ideas, and her raw vegan catering business, Rawlicious, was born in 2017.
Further developing her skills, she travelled to Bali for a Raw Vegan Chef diploma at the Sayuri Healing Food Café & Academy. When Andreea returned to Macau, she started adding raw vegan savory food to her dessert business. She has since returned to the Academy to take the Level 2 training course.
“It’s not easy for people to understand this type of food”, Andreea admits, however she has discovered quite a big vegan community in Macau now, largely comprised of young Chinese students. A greater interest in health, greater demand for organic food and questions around the way food is produced today are some of the driving factors, according to Andreea.
Taking the message of a healthy lifestyle to a wider audience, Andreea partnered with her friend Cintia Leite, a former high school art teacher who started the social enterprise ManaVida, which combines physical activities with donations to charitable causes. Their collaboration, RawVida, offers an opportunity for people to learn more about diet variations and body exercises that can be added to their normal routine. Their first raw food fitness retreat took place in November 2017 and was overbooked, much to their delight and surprise.
When a clubhouse café in a residential building in Novacity invited Rawlicous for a collaboration, Andreea found a loyal following amongst the House of Dancing Water athletes, many of whom live there. About three months ago she started preparing their meals and delivering them to the theatre. It is a job she loves because they “have amazing energy” and she finds their happiness infectious.
In March this year, she ran a 3-day detox at The Sheraton, only serving raw food (Day 1 was Italian food, followed by Asian, and Middle Eastern food on the second and third days). The days started with a morning yoga class and breakfast, followed by an ‘Introduction to Raw Food’ workshop, then lunch and finally, a pre-prepared takeaway dinner.
“It’s not easy to be raw, you can’t find everything you need around here. But just introducing one raw meal or snack a day – nuts, fruit – is very easy and very good for your energy. You can feel the changes in a few days. The first thing people ask me is ‘Are you raw?!’ I’m not completely raw, I’m about 50% raw,” she says.
A couple of tips to get started on raw food: “Make sure you are not allergic to nuts! Raw food is based on nuts. Start slowly, and have time to prepare the food. Start with a raw breakfast, raw snacks, and try raw food in restaurants”. A blender, food processor, and a dehydrator are tools to help you on your way.
Andreea is optimistic about the growing Macau vegan scene, citing local restaurants Vega Vega, Vegan Castelle and Healthy Habits, as examples, as well as restaurants in casinos who are expanding their vegan options.
The next step is to find a small studio, as her kitchen space is running out, as is her capacity to keep up with her unexpected booming growth. She dreams of having her own café, her own space to accompany her amazing growth over two short years. And she wants to be the first 100% raw plant based food space.
Andreea would also like to work with the government, to get a subsidy to offer 3/5/7-day lifestyle programmes and meal delivery services. She is hoping her recent A.A. Taste Award will help her towards that ambition.
“I love my work. When I get home I feel so happy. I can’t believe how much Macau has changed my life.”
