stella lowis

The Sweet Approach

Ever since she was a little girl, La Maison’s Founder and Executive Pastry Chef Stella Lowis has always been interested in baking. On Sundays, she would help her grandmother in the kitchen and bake delicious treats for the family. She remembers how when she was in high school, she would wake up at four in the morning to bake cupcakes and bring them to school for her friends. Eventually, she enrolled at a French pastry school right after high school.

After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu, she came home as her parent’s business was closing down. At the time, highquality pastries were a rarity, so she and her brothers saw an opportunity.

Under her parents’ guidance, Stella and her brothers established La Maison. At one point, her father told them: “Starting today, we will let the three of you run this bakery yourselves. We won’t guide you through every step because it is okay to make mistakes – that’s how you learn to be better.”

So, starting from its humble beginnings in Stella’s home kitchen in Medan back in 2021, La Maison has now expanded to Jakarta, but still remains a family-owned bakery. Stella considers the expansion to Jakarta as the most significant milestone in her journey so far. The move also allowed her to discover how customers would differ from region to region. As such, each recipe and store experience under La Maison is tailored to local culture, local tastes, and local ingredients. It’s a challenging yet fulfilling reality.

For now, Stella doesn’t measure La Maison’s success by how many stores they have, but instead focuses on customer satisfaction. She feels she has succeeded when her customers are happy with the pastries – it’s as simple as that for Silvia. In the end, she bakes to bring happiness to people through her pastries.