Sugar Rush
Afterthoughts no more, pastry chefs are striking a blow for professional pride and artistic and business accomplishment. From the center of a perfect pastry storm, Pichet Ong charts the winds of howling success.
Posted: January 15, 2008
The historical timeline of the American Food Revolution will mark 2007 as "The Year of the Pastry Chef." Stepping out of their complementary role, pastry chefs grabbed the marquee for themselves, opening bakeries, chocolate shops, confection commissaries, and, most notably, highly anticipated sweet-and-savory restaurants. No doubt about it, pastry chefs are now in business and in the limelight.
Things began to stir two years ago when Iacopo Falai, the former pastry chef at Le Cirque 2000 (now Le Cirque), unleashed Falai, an Italian restaurant, in Manhattan's Lower East. His menu revealed several influences of the pastry kitchen, such as fine handcrafted pastas, fruit paper, and various sweet coulis. Around the same time, Mindy Segal debuted Hot Chocolate in Chicago. Her creative reinterpretations of classic American dishes, combined with her well-known pastries, made the restaurant one of the hottest dining destinations in town.
Then came two pastry chefs, wife and husband team Claudia Fleming and Gerry Hayden (who is recognized more as a savory chef), who opened the locally focused The North Fork Table & Inn in Southold on the North Fork of Long Island, New York.
Several other pastry chefs opened restaurants in New York City in 2007, including Jehangir Mehta (formerly of Aix) and Sam Mason (formerly of wd-50), whose Graffiti and Tailor, respectively, became two of the most anticipated restaurant openings of the year. P*ONG (belonging to yours truly) opened its doors in the spring. All three restaurants have innovative dishes, original presentations of foie gras, fun diners, and upbeat rooms, but our menus are very different. P*ONG's cuisine shares the common thread that the media likes to refer to as "blurring the line between sweet and savory," but I really just wanted to serve dishes based on ingredients I like to eat. And yes, every item on the menu utilizes both sugar and salt, and incorporates the unusual and unique spectrum profile of every flavor in-between.
The year also saw a number of pastry chef–owned bakery and confectionary concepts in New York City. Emily Isaac opened Trois Pommes Patisserie, a dessert and ice cream shop. Tina Casaceli, who also serves as director of the pastry program at The French Culinary Institute, took over and revamped Milk & Cookies Bakery. Ellen Sternau opened How Sweet It Is bakery and cafe. Another Le Cirque pastry alum, Jerome Chang, wheeled out Dessert Truck in Greenwich Village, proffering $5 sweets to the man on the street. In Norwalk, Connecticut, chocolatier Fritz Knipschildt opened Chocopologie, a restaurant with an extensive dessert menu. Megan Roen, former pastry chef at Bayona, returned right after Hurricane Katrina and opened up Sucre, a pastry shop/cafe in New Orleans. In Berkeley, California, Mary Canales, previously the pastry chef at Chez Panisse, unveiled Ici, featuring frozen treats exclusively made with all organic products. Pastry chef ventures extended beyond food to provide exciting new venues for socialization and the reinvention of personal approaches to the craft of cooking and running successful businesses. A great example is Will Goldfarb, who, despite the closure of Room 4 Dessert, quickly returned this year with Picnick, a sandwich kiosk in New York City's Battery Park, and a chocolate cafe at ABC Carpet & Home. David Guas, who oversaw multiple restaurants in Washington, D.C., including Ceiba, will open Bayou Bakery in McLean, Virginia, next year.
In a recent survey, savory chefs in 2007 volunteered that it is more difficult than ever to find and keep talented pastry chefs. Given the shortage, many savory cooks have ventured into the dessert department (as I did for the second time a decade ago). The result is the introduction of exciting new ingredients in the dessert pantry. Think spices, vegetables, and even proteins. Many savvy pastry chefs are also benefiting from the widespread shortage. Rhonda Ruckman of Doughmonkey supplies customized desserts to several Dallas restaurants and ships them throughout the country. In the same vein, Kristy Choo, chef/owner of Jin Patisserie in Venice, California, supplies artisanal chocolates to fine hotels that may otherwise employ in-house chocolatiers. Florian Bellanger left Fauchon in New York City a year ago to start his own confection commissary, brilliantly named MadMac, now a premier source for high-end madeleines and macaroons.
It was also a banner year for dessert and pastry cookbooks. Many released long-awaited debuts, such as Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen by Gina DePalma, and my own, The Sweet Spot: Asian-Inspired Desserts. Elizabeth Falkner, whose Citizen Cake in San Francisco is known by many as "the pastry chef's restaurant," released her first book, Demolition Desserts: Recipes from Citizen Cake. Claire Clark, pastry chef at The French Laundry, surprised us all with Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts. We also have reissues and sequels, like Emily Luchetti's Classic Stars Desserts, Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert, Ann Amernick's The Art of the Dessert, and Carole Walter's Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More. Nancy Silverton came out with a cookbook that also featured savory recipes entitled A Twist of the Wrist. Then there were the memoirs: All the Presidents' Pastries: Twenty-Five Years in the White House by former White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier and Sherry Yard's highly engaging Desserts by the Yard: From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills. Soon going to press are Johnny Iuzzini's Dessert 4 Play and Mehta's Mantra: The Rules of Indulgence.
Many pastry chefs also started follow-up businesses, including Falai, whose savory/sweet sit-down/take-out Caffe Falai in SoHo is the first of many expected to come. Mark Furstenberg is returning to Washington, D.C., with Remarkable Breads, featuring ice creams and a new collection of breads. Artisanal chocolatier Kee Ling Tong doubled the size of her top-rated Kee's Chocolates in New York City. François Payard, another modern pastry pioneer and restaurateur, is setting up a new shop in Seoul, South Korea, and another in Las Vegas. Chika Tillman, the first to open up an all-dessert restaurant in New York City, opened ChikaLicious Puddin' at year's end. Falkner will open Orson, a supersized pastry restaurant, any day now. I'll be opening Batch soon, a small take-away dessert shop right next door to P*ONG.
I believe the transformation of pastry chefs from supporting culinary players to stars is the result of leverage between their rich and varied experiences and deep knowledge of pastry arts into exciting culinary ventures. This has elevated the category to new dimensions. Our profession has succeeded in executing some of the most sublime sweet and savory culinary fantasies imaginable.
While my colleagues and I have adventurously "blurred the line," there's still a place for the simple perfect scoop of vanilla ice cream served over a hot apple crumble. I'm not sure what lies ahead—perhaps reinventions of classics, deconstructions of the well-known, or something sight-unseen—but I do know that our profession will continue to provide ample room for all forms of culinary expression.
