It’s notoriously difficult to make a success of a food outlet in Dubai. That’s why the meteoric rise of Kameel Rasyid Eril’s bakery is so impressive.
The Indonesian founder and head chef of Bkry is a man who clearly knows his stuff. There’s nothing flaky about his concept and discipline is baked into everything he does.
His reward? Less than 20 months after taking the plunge and opening his original bakery on Alserkal Avenue in June 2024, Eril is preparing to expand with a series of outposts. If all goes to plan, by the end of March, a second branch should open in Dubai, with others in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Cairo.
“It’s obviously a very busy time, especially during the winter season,” he tells The National. “But it is very exciting, absolutely. I’m trying to find the right balance between being head chef and businessman. I’m doing both.”
To understand how Bkry has grown so quickly, Eril reflects on the influences that run through everything he does. He grew up in Bandung, Indonesia, in a house where culinary creativity was a constant. His earliest memories of baking are tied directly to his mother, who ran her own business.
“My passion started simply by watching her bake every day,” he says. “Seeing her in the kitchen baking amazing cakes and bread had a big influence on me.”
As a child, Eril helped whenever he could. What fascinated him wasn’t only the end product, but the process: mixing, shaping, waiting, baking, then waiting some more. The real satisfaction arrived when he witnessed customers sampling the results. “When I could see that we were selling products and making customers happy, it became serious,” he says. “That’s why I chose to study pastry and bakery. I have not stopped since.”
His mother’s business did not continue after her death, but her influence never left him. It was the reason he committed to three years of vocational training, followed by work in Indonesian hotels, refining his skills in bread, cakes and chocolate.
At 19, curiosity pulled Eril farther afield. Online, he kept seeing images of elaborate chocolate sculptures, a concept he had never encountered. “Back then, there was nothing like that in Indonesia,” he recalls. “I was wondering how they made it and where it happened.” That search led him to Abu Dhabi and his first job at Swiss Bakery, in 2011.
The move marked the start of a long UAE chapter. Over the next decade and a half, Rasyid worked across bakeries, catering companies and five-star hotels, including the Sheraton Creek in Dubai, where he developed a deep understanding of plated desserts and chocolate decoration. But it was competitive cooking that truly sharpened him.
He entered pastry and bakery competitions that focused on decorative work and ice cream, learning to operate under pressure and scrutiny. Judges demanded precision, originality and consistency. Details mattered. Discipline mattered even more.
That work ethic paid off spectacularly in 2022, when Eril competed on the world stage at the Culinary World Cup in Luxembourg and the Culinary Olympics in Germany, returning with three gold medals and one silver. Those medals did more than raise his profile. They changed his thinking.
“I run my business as if I am in a competition,” Eril says. “That’s what I do with each product. The discipline from being in competition really shaped me.”
It also gave him the confidence to take a leap he had never planned. “I had never thought of having a business here or building a brand,” he says. “I think the competition led me to think about what I could do next.” After 14 years Eril spent working for others, Bkry was born.
If his mum gave him his start and medals gave him discipline, miso represents his philosophy. Rasyid’s baking style has a classic French foundation, but it is constantly nudged in unexpected directions. He is heavily influenced by Japanese methods, particularly fermentation.
“I admire how they make their own miso,” he says. “I started thinking, why not exchange salt for something better?” Instead of relying on straight salinity, he uses miso for depth and umami. Bkry makes its own koji and miso in-house, folding them into breads and pastries in subtle ways.
That experimental mindset extends to sourcing. Grain is imported from carefully chosen suppliers who share Bkry’s ethics. The bakery mills its own flour to control protein levels and acidity. “All this work goes into each product,” he says. “I think it differentiates us in the market.”
Customers seem to agree. Queues regularly snake through Alserkal Avenue, with visitors travelling from Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and beyond. That demand is what pushed Eril to expand faster than expected, surprising even himself.
Despite the growth, he remains hands-on, juggling menu development with the realities of running a fast-scaling business. “Sometimes it feels overwhelming,” he admits, “but I have the help of a great team.”
Design also plays a central role, another inheritance from home. His father was an architect, and Eril grew up surrounded by drawings. His parents even worked together, with his father creating packaging for his mother’s products. Today, Bkry’s spaces reflect the same values as its food, with sustainable materials such as tiles made from date pits, recycled-plastic furniture and compressed wood boards.
Asked what to order, Eril doesn’t hesitate. His personal favourite is the Tanzanian chocolate croissant, made with fruity, fermented cacao beans from Kokoa Kamili. Customers, meanwhile, keep coming back for the salted caramel and cinnamon rolls.
Every couple of months, new items appear, but the bestsellers stay. It’s a balance of innovation and consistency that mirrors his own journey.
From a Bandung kitchen with his mum, to medal podiums in Europe, to miso-laced pastries in Dubai, Eril's success is anything but accidental. It’s the result of memory, method and an obsessive attention to detail. In a city where cafes come and go, his concept feels built to last.
