Mani’s Test Kitchen
“I bring magic, innovation and great taste to everything I do in the food world.”
Hi, I’m Mani Niall and I’ve been tinkering in the kitchen all my life. While my recent test kitchen work assists food companies in creating and launching new products and taste sensations, my interest in the kitchen goes back to my family. In our house, everyone cooked: Dad made vichyssoise, coq au vin and other dishes he had tasted in France, my sisters loved to make cookies, whole wheat bread and granola and Mom sent me to the garden every night to “snip some chives” to whisk into the salad dressing just before dinner.
Since my first job at a classic health food restaurant in college, I’ve been fortunate enough to work across the culinary spectrum beginning with baking at both retail and manufacturing levels, product development projects, culinary student education and writing cookbooks. Oh, and there was that amazing stint as MJ’s private chef!
Past, Present, Future Culinary Projects
click on the images below for more info
Mäni’s Bakery
From 1990 - 2010, Mäni’s Bakery specialized in fruit sweetened desserts and barley malted chocolate…”Mäni’s truffles have that drop dead chocolate flavor you associate with the best desserts” L A Times
According to the LA Weekly, “ since his bakery opened on Fairfax last winter, he’s developed a clientele so loyal its practically a cult”
Michael Jackson’s Private Chef
Mani Niall was Michael Jackson’s first private chef from 1982-85, during which time Niall would occasionally do the moonwalk, badly, just to make the singer laugh.
Cookbook Author
Sweet & Natural Baking, Covered in Honey, Sweet! and Good Morning Baking
Product Development
Restaurant Menu Development
Food Business Advisor
Testimonials
“We are excited to partner with Mani’s Test Kitchen to develop and refine our new drinking chocolate! As Numi celebrates its 20th anniversary, innovative tastes and opportunities are our priority and Mani has really come through on this new product. ”
“Mani’s Test Kitchen helped us create our organic, heirloom tomato pasta sauces. Mani has a knack for flavor and lots of ideas. He rocks. ”
“I call on Mani’s creativity and experience for work across the culinary spectrum: confection, savory and sweet baking, snacks, beverages, frozen, shelf-stable, cereals, entrées, special diet, etc.. A partial list of client companies includes Conagra, Dole Fresh, Kraft, Pepperidge Farm, Seeds of Change, Jamba Juice, Ben & Jerry’s, and Heinz.”
Client Services
New Product Formulations
Focus on flavor, capturing weights, measures and directions for scale up, manufacturing and co-packer success. Vendor sourcing for both large scale production manufacturing and local café/bakery.
Business Owner “mindset”
Former food business owner with daily awareness of foodcost, waste, trainable menu items, scalability and customer accessibility.
Teamwork & Ideation
In manufacturing I spent six years as part of a team working with sales, accounting, the CEO and directly with clients responding to custom requests for new products. Ideation involved producing samples for strategy sessions, capturing new ideas and trends that consumers are ready to embrace.
Taste Test
Conducted anonymously for unbiased results, facilitate group discussion after opinions submitted to get the best consensus.
Food Safety
Years of compliance and collaboration with the Health Dept. to achieve a passing grade and uphold standards. Manager level ServSafe certification.
Troubleshooting
I have dubbed this food and recipe “archeology.” Learn the most you can about the history, the how and why of a formula to understand why it does what it does. Only then can you fix, improve or refresh a product when necessary!
