Many of us have a fantasy about setting up on our own: we leave the section, we finally get to cook exactly what you want, and the hard part is behind you. The reality is a lot different. You swap one kind of pressure for another, and you spend a decent chunk of your week thinking about bin bags.
Kimberly Lin has done both ends of it, at the top. She reached Head Pastry Chef at two of the most scrutinised hotel kitchens in London, then walked away to build a cookie brand from a rough concept into Floozie, where she is now Founder, Brand Partner and Development Pastry Chef. The craft has taken her to 28 countries along the way, from stages in Japan to work exchanges in Panama and Sri Lanka, and every bit of it has come back out in the product.
Kimberly has lived the fantasy and the reality of going it alone, and she is honest about the gap between them. She knows what it takes to hold perfection together under five star scrutiny, and she knows what it costs to run a business where nothing, not even the bin bags, is too small to matter.
In this fascinating Career Spotlight we hear about the knowledge gap that opens up when you move from Michelin restaurants into five star hotels, what a festive season at Claridge's does to your organisational skills, the flavour failure she will never live down, and the one piece of advice that has followed her through every kitchen she has worked in.
Career Spotlight: Kimberly Lin, Co-Founder of Floozie Cookies
What was the journey that led you to your current role?
My journey into pastry started 25 years ago in Canada, where I first trained. In 2005, I moved to the UK, working in Cambridge before joining The Elephant in Torquay for a year. I then took the big step to London, joining The Square as Pastry Chef de Partie in early 2010. Later that year, I stepped into a Junior Sous Chef role at The Savoy. I moved to Claridge's as Pastry Sous Chef, staying for two years before taking on my first Head Pastry Chef role at The Corinthia. After two years there, I returned to Claridge's as their Head Pastry Chef, before leaving to travel around the world for a year.
After travelling, I returned in 2018 to take on the role of Development Pastry Chef at Dominique Ansel Bakery, a position I held until 2020. It was there that I met my now business partner, who went on to found Game Changers Investments (GCI), an investment company that incubates and develops F&B brands. I'd presented some cookies for a project at Dominique Ansel Bakery. He liked the idea and concept and decided to bring it to GCI, where Floozie became one of the founding brands. At the time, cookies weren't having the moment they're having now; the market was pretty limited, and I saw a gap. Floozie came together quickly: an idea tossed around in June, a rough concept by September, and a physical pop-up by December.
One of the biggest challenges we've faced was the pandemic. Like everyone, we went through lockdowns and had to furlough our team, but we were determined to keep the brand moving forward rather than just pause and wait it out. We diversified quickly, launching national delivery and expanding how customers could get hold of us, so we could stay open in some form even when the doors physically couldn't be. Since then, we've continued to grow the brand to what it is today, and I now serve as Founder/Brand Partner and Development Pastry Chef for Floozie.
What’s been the hardest thing about your career journey so far, and how did you get through it?
I don’t think there’s one single thing that has been the “hardest” thing in my career. On the surface, working hundreds of hours in incredibly fast paced environments, working to achieve this sort of perfection day in and day out - yes that is hard and relentless.
Making the move from multi-Michelin star restaurants into 5 star hotels was also pretty hard. I had a massive knowledge gap. I had little to no knowledge of banqueting, In-Room Dining, the general intricacies of a hotel, nor the volumes needed to cater for it... I also have to admit I had only a vague understanding of what afternoon tea was. I didn’t go into hotels as a commis chef, I was going in as a sous chef. My learning curve was sharp and swift.
Claridge's taught me volume, speed, and how to hold an enormous workload to an exceptional standard without it slipping, under the kind of scrutiny five-star guests expect and rarely forgive. Afternoon tea for 150+ covers, multiple banqueting functions, special requests, bespoke amenities, daily service, all running at once, often colliding. Moving into a senior role meant guiding a whole team to hit that same standard, not just hitting it myself. When a hotel pastry kitchen is working well, it's like watching a conductor in front of an orchestra. Every section moving independently, somehow landing together, in time, under pressure.
It completely changed how I look at workloads and deadlines. I wouldn't say I'm unflappable, a big job list can still get to me. But it takes a lot to properly rattle me now, and even when it does, I learned never to let it show to the team. No matter how overwhelmed I felt, I kept it to myself, because the moment your team sees you rattled, it rattles them too.
Once you've been through a festive season at Claridge's, you come out the other side pretty tough. It's where I really honed my organisational skills, time and task management, every minute of the day planned out, every job list planned down to the gram, everything calculated against volume and quantity so nothing was ever guessed at. It probably sounds like micromanaging, but at that scale, under that level of scrutiny, there's no room for anything less. That precision has stayed with me ever since.
What’s the most unexpected part of your role?
Honestly, the most unexpected part has been the travel. I never set out thinking pastry would take me anywhere. I just wanted to get good at the craft. But it ended up opening doors I never expected: stages in Japan, working holidays in New Zealand and Australia, work exchanges in Panama and Sri Lanka, consultancy work in Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Some of it was personal adventure, a lot of it was work — but altogether I've now visited 28 countries.
Without that travel, we wouldn't have our Around the World campaign. Experiencing different cultures and cuisines first-hand directly shaped 18 cookies and 4 drinks in that range. You don't expect a trade to become a passport — but that's exactly what it's been, and it's fed straight back into the product.
What’s the best part of the job?
It's a simple thing, but seeing someone eat a cookie and watch their face changing. Sometimes they end up telling you a story you weren't expecting, about a memory it brought back. That's the bit that makes the rest of it worth it.
What’s the hardest or most draining part?
The hardest part is holding two ways of thinking at once, the chef who wants to chase the perfect cookie, and the operator who's tracking every cost. And neither one gets to switch off.
What skills matter most in your role — beyond the obvious ones?
Adaptability and problem-solving. Most days run smoothly, but when something goes sideways, it's rarely a straightforward fix - you have to think creatively, find a solution that isn't just the obvious one, and do it without losing sight of the bigger picture.
Also, you need to be innovative and continue creating exciting products to give your customers something new to try. At the moment, for example, we are running a huge summer campaign called Around the World, where we are putting on a new 24-part summer dessert range, launching three new cookies every two weeks. Each cookie is based on my travels around the world, drawing on memories from each country I have visited. We have countries from all over the world such as Japan, Mozambique and Denmark. I think customers enjoy something that is a bit different and unique, and also something that really showcases the personal side of the brand.
What did you have to learn the hard way?
I tend to hold myself to very high standards, which are often unachievable, and it took me time to understand that it isn’t fair to hold everyone else to those standards as well. I sometimes have to take a step back and remind myself that everyone has their own strengths and that they might be different to my own, and that I really need to lean into those strengths as that’s often where my weaknesses are.
Another thing I have learnt along the way is that your own taste and the market’s taste don’t always agree. We haven’t had loads of outright flavour failures, but there's one I'll never live down: a Skittles cookie with pineapple jam. I was questioning my life choices after that one. It happens. Sometimes flavours we're genuinely excited about fall flat, and ones I'm lukewarm on end up being best-sellers.
What advice would you give to someone trying to break into the industry
There are many different paths into this industry, and I can only really speak to mine, which probably wasn’t the easiest one. I lived and breathed it, to the point there wasn't much room for anything else. A bit obsessive, if I'm honest. Would I have gotten here without that? I genuinely don't know. So, I won't say my way is the way, but whatever path you take you have to love it, as it’s a tough industry to be in. If you're going to give this much of your life to something, it has to bring you real joy.
What’s the best piece of advice that YOU were given?
‘Don't fuck it up.' It's simple, but it's one of the most loaded pieces of advice I've ever been given, and I've heard it more times than I can count. The first time was right before a work placement at one of the best restaurants in Western Canada. My instructor said it plainly: "don't fuck it up. You're representing the school now." That one sentence has echoed through my whole career in a hundred different forms. Don't fuck up that soufflé. Don't fuck up that special request. Just... don't fuck it up.
About Kimberly Lin
Canada-raised Kimberly Lin is one of the most accomplished pastry chefs working in London, with a career spanning the city's most demanding hotel kitchens and, latterly, one of its fastest-growing dessert brands. She trained in Canada before moving to the UK in 2005, rising through The Square, The Savoy and Claridge's, and going on to hold Head Pastry Chef roles at both The Corinthia and Claridge's — running pastry operations covering afternoon tea, banqueting and in-room dining at five-star volume.
A period as Development Pastry Chef at Dominique Ansel Bakery followed, before she founded Floozie in 2020. Now Founder, Brand Partner and Development Pastry Chef, Kimberly has built Floozie from a single Covent Garden shop into an entirely plant-based stuffed-cookie brand with franchised sites, nationwide delivery and an announced expansion into the United States. Product development is where the hotel training and the founder's eye meet: she is responsible for the full range and its seasonal collections, most ambitiously Around the World in 80 Days, a summer-long campaign of 18 cookies, four drinks and two snacks inspired by 24 countries, with three new cookies released every fortnight from June to September — a miso dulce marshmallow cookie for Japan, brown butter and guava jam for Mozambique, each drawn from somewhere she has cooked, staged or travelled.
