Latasha Menon - Latasha Menon first tempted the people of Perth into her Leederville cafe in 2003 with an irresistible array of dishes embodying the art of cooking she learnt as a child.

"My food is pretty much the regional cooking of my ancestors."

Latasha was born and brought up in Malaysia. Her family originally hailed from Kerala in Southern India. As a result, her cooking reflects the distinctive traditions of food from both South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Latasha’s Malaysian-born husband is of Sri Lankan descent – a land noted for its chilli-based curry dishes. Another exciting layer of her culinary repertoire, Latasha’s Sri Lankan-style dishes have a following among those who enjoy food fuelled with a little ‘fire’.

"There are so many ingredients and many are unfamiliar to Australians."

Settling in Perth in 1994, Latasha quickly realised that Australians were unfamiliar with the many ingredients, methods and styles she took for granted growing up in a different culture. For years she harboured dreams of demonstrating her love of food through her own cafe.

In 2003, her dream became a reality. During her final months as a senior executive at a large Perth corporation, she brought in a selection of dishes for colleagues to try. Concluding with a survey to determine which food combinations they liked best, the trials provided Latasha with a blueprint for her first cafe menu.

"I’m not concerned about competition because my style of food is quite different."

Latasha’s Place opened in July that year, quickly becoming a popular venue for Asian, African and Middle Eastern migrants deprived of somewhere to eat familiar-tasting dishes. Curry fanatics from Britain also cottoned on, and word soon spread among Australians that the new café’s exciting and daily-changing menu of dishes to eat-in or take-away represented something totally different.

Resisting the temptation to tailor her original family recipes to suit ‘western’ palates, Latasha began converting a growing number of customers to appreciate the flavour of meat slow cooked on the bone using masala ground from scratch, with fresh ingredients and strictly no preservatives, commercial stocks or MSG.

"I’m never happier than when I am in the kitchen creating beautiful food."

Latasha’s passion definitely rubbed off on her enthusiastic clientele. Many became fascinated by the methods and techniques she used and were constantly asking questions. Latasha’s Kitchen is a natural progression for both her and her customers. At Latasha’s Kitchen, they are now able to join classes to participate and/or see precisely how to prepare her beautiful food for themselves. Latasha runs both hands-on and demonstration classes for groups of between 4 and 12 persons. These classes run on weeknights from 6pm to 9pm, mainly to cater for the large numbers of her clientele who have daytime jobs, however, Latasha is still flexible enough to offer special daytime classes by prior arrangement.

In view of the demand for the hands-on classes for couples, Latasha is now taking bookings for Monday daytime classes from 10am to 1pm. These classes have been developed with a strong focus on collabaration and turning out delicious spicy food.

A recent addition to the business at Latasha's Kitchen spawned out of the ever increasing numbers of requests for Latasha's masalas pastes and powders - both wet and dry. It began as a 'helping hand' mixing various spice powders into specific dry masalas for her regular customers and with advice (to boot) on how to use this to cook a curry. From this, Latasha has now developed a range of ready-to-use masalas for those truly keen on generating their own authentic curries - without going through the whole process from scratch. Because it is not commercially prepared, the product you make out of these masalas is simply stunning. For now the range is limited to allow you to cook your own homestyle chicken, beef or lamb curry, vindaloo (beef or pork), rendang, butter chicken, rogan josh, korma and Indonesian curry. This range is set to be expanded over time.