Innovative and extreme, Family Style's Fall 2024 issue guest chef Laila Gohar has never been one to stop short of her imagination—just ask the thousands that stare in awe at her larger-than-life food installations.
What do an office chair made entirely of cake, a 16-foot-long raspberry tart fit for a giant, a quilt of carefully arranged flat bread, and an iron work-inspired egg chandelier have in common? Absolutely nothing—except for their ingenious creator, Laila Gohar. Whether or not her dramatic dishes are edible or even food-adjacent, though, is not always clear.
Born in Egypt and now based in New York, Gohar, 36, is an illusionist who is often referred to as a “food artist.” It’s a double-edged sword: a title she has worked hard to earn but one she doesn’t care for, really. “It sounds so pretentious,” she tells me with a laugh. “I struggle with terms, because they’re boxes. Now I just say ‘artist’... It feels more freeing.”
After spending more than a decade crafting large scale edible projects for some of the biggest names in luxury fashion—including Hermès, Gucci, Prada, and Comme des Garçons—it seems a no-brainer that her personal style reflects her extraordinary installations, especially given the sumptuous nature of her work.
On one particular summer day, I happen to catch Gohar post-workout running errands around downtown Manhattan, and even in gym clothes she is effortlessly cool. Other days, she arrives at her TriBeCa studio in a well-loved Loewe dress from her archives. Her surrealist apron, an unmissable Gohar signature, has two tiny lace hands that dangle down her torso. “I wear everything all the time,” she offers. “I don’t believe in saving nice things like homeware or clothing for a special day. I think that there’s something special about every day.”
“There is a fascination and childlike effect that happens when things are scaled up or down. Somehow it feels magical and kind of otherworldly, but then there’s also this aesthetic of generosity that I really enjoy: abundance, things that are communal and feed a lot of mouths.”
— Laila Gohar
Like her ever-evolving closet, Gohar’s list of titles grows longer each year, too, from chef to columnist to creative director to co-founder of Gohar World. The latter, a tableware and accessories brand she started with her sister Nadia four years ago, is dedicated to embracing time, tradition, and humor. And, last summer, she added mother to the lineup.
As someone who knows all too well how taxing it can be to curate and execute an edible concept across an impossible timeline, I sheepishly ask Gohar how the transition into motherhood has been. This is mostly because I’m curious, I am, but also because I feel the enormous weight of a biological clock anchoring my own, 35-year-old body down, and the societal pressure that leaves women with a zero tolerance policy for any other emotion surrounding new motherhood other than, of course, undeniable joy.
“Some women are like, I absolutely want to have a kid, or I want to have it by this time, but that was not me,” Gohar adds. “I mean, I’m so, so thankful that I did have a kid, but I was worried about so many things—like my career, first and foremost—and how it would affect my freedom in general.” But now that she’s a year into motherhood, she tells me that becoming a mom has only enhanced her creativity, time management, and way of working. “Having a child expands your thinking in a way that you’re not really able to comprehend or grasp before it happens.”
Her response instantly conjures a significant and necessary shift in my thoughts and feelings about my own path to motherhood. I realize that I, too, have struggled with what becoming a parent would mean for my work, career decisions, and what those sacrifices would look like. But it isn’t until this moment that I realize I feel okay about sharing those sentiments. I feel safe and at ease with Gohar, and perhaps that’s what her work is all about. What else could someone dedicated to creating such ornate and delicious food experiences that are either adorably small or comically colossal be trying to tell us? “There is a fascination and childlike effect that happens when things are scaled up or down,” she explains to me. “Somehow it feels magical and kind of otherworldly, but then there’s also this aesthetic of generosity that I really enjoy: abundance, things that are communal and feed a lot of mouths.”
Requests to feed a staggering 3,000 people for an event might seem overwhelming to some. Gohar, however, finds inspiration under such constraints. “I like to play with the scale for many different reasons,” she says. Recently, at a party to honor Glenlivet’s 200th anniversary, she whipped up a larger-than-life cassata cake stretching 200 inches in length (that’s almost 17 feet for the math-impaired). And yes, it was as beautiful to look at as it was to eat. Intricately decorated, and adorned with fist-size candied fruit, if all you knew of Gohar’s work was this cake, you’d immediately recognize that she’s an artist, who, while obviously inspired by nostalgia, brings a modern wit and cheeky sense of humor to everything she makes.
As our time comes to an end, I wonder where Gohar is headed next. Is there a new project she’s hoping to execute, something extreme? She pauses for a while, and I can’t help but smile watching her scan for the answer inside her factory of an imagination where chaos and creativity are constantly finding harmony. “I constantly dream up new things every day,” she says, smiling. “I have actual dreams every night—or things that I want to do. Sometimes I forget them. I try to write them down. There are always those kinds of new things.”