Martin P Koss, Owner & Chef
(Personal Profile)

Martin has been in the baking industry for over 30 years. His interest in the food industry started in a small cookie factory in New Jersey in the late 1960's. In 1974 he attended the Culinary Institute of America in New York, graduating in 1976. After taking an additional 6 months of training in pastry and bakery education, Martin went to work at the Omni International Hotel in Atlanta Georgia. Here Martin worked with world renowned Austrian Chefs Gunther Heiland and Karl Unter Holtzner, learning the art of pastry baking, including breads and muffins, Danish, a-la carte desserts, ice creams and sorbets, as well as designing edible show piece displays.

In 1980 Martin accepted a position at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta as a Pastry Chef, responsible for the development of dessert menus for banquet facilities accommodating 3000, four restaurants and a pastry shop.

Come 1982, Martin accepted the management of a Dutch style dessert cafe in North Atlanta named the Maison Gourmet. While employed at this restaurant, Martin took the opportunity to design and manage a wholesale commissary bakeshop located in Little Five Points, Atlanta. The bakery supplied desserts and wedding cakes to a rapidly growing catering business owned by Maison Gourmet. The demand for cakes soon outgrew the facility.

In 1984, Martin resigned and opened his own wholesale bakery, in the classic European Tradition of Cake & Pastry design, known as Pastries By Martin, Inc. which is located in Atlanta, Georgia. To this day, Martin continues to serve restaurants and caterer's in Atlanta, reaching to Huntsville, Alabama as well as Aiken, South Carolina.