Paris, My Sweet (24 page)

As much of a sweet freak as I am, by the time I finish a meal, I'm not so interested in dessert. I prefer my sweets midday or late night, consumed on an empty, eager stomach. But that night, the reward on top of the award was La Coupole's baba au rhum.

Baba au rhum is a popular French dessert that was on my radar, owing to my close proximity to Stohrer, the historic pâtisserie on rue Montorgueil where the dessert originated. Nicolas Stohrer, the young Polish pastry chef, had journeyed to Paris in 1725 along with the king of Poland's daughter, Marie Leszczynska, when she married King Louis XV. Five years after arriving in the court of Versailles, the royal chef opened this gorgeous pâtisserie. Two hundred and eighty years later, I was no stranger to its seductions.

Every time I stepped across the pâtisserie's name scrolled in gold across the turquoise tiled floor, I wanted to have a tea party. Naked maidens from the pastel frescoes by Paul Baudry, the same artist who painted the Garnier Opera's exquisite ceilings, stared down at me, and I couldn't help but channel Marie Antoinette and her three-foot-tall pompadours and five-foot-wide ball gowns. I'd float along the display case, rendered more and more helpless by all the pretty colors, elaborate constructions, and sheer embarrassment of options. There was the
charlotte aux framboises
with its perfectly plump berries, and tiramisu served exquisitely in a fine demi-chocolate shell. The
tartelette à l'orange
with a glossy sheen that made it look like an
art
decoratif
rather than a little edible something, and the chocolate éclairs, with thick, shiny
glaçage
, had received
Le
Figaro
's nod for the city's best (a conclusion I concurred with). And then there was that funny golden, lumpish cake called the baba au rhum.

Nicolas Stohrer is said to have invented the dessert after splashing a dry Polish brioche with sweet Malaga wine to please the king. Stohrer's baba au rhum—still served in coffee-houses and restaurants around the world—has remained unchanged for centuries. And in addition to the original version, there are two other varieties: the Ali-Baba with raisins and the baba Chantilly, which is topped with fresh whipped cream.

While I do ordinarily prefer my sweets as an afternoon
gouter
or a loyal companion in front of the TV at night, I loved the concept of dessert bars when they started popping up in New York. After all, they were the perfect excuse to just have dessert for dinner. I knew this was a totally valid philosophy after trying Pichet Ong's West Village dessert bar, p*ong.

Pichet has certainly enjoyed the sweet taste of success. After launching his pastry chef career at La Folie, a lovely French restaurant in San Francisco, and working at Todd English's acclaimed Olives in Boston, he took on Manhattan. When he arrived in the city, he worked at successful restaurants like Jean Georges and Tabla. He started earning accolades as the opening pastry chef of RM and consulting pastry chef to Jean-Georges Vongerichten's popular restaurants, 66 and Spice Market. He told me that his own childhood was the foundation for his novel approach to baking that relies on flavors like yuzu, basil seed, and condensed milk—flavors not seen on every dessert menu. “I grew up in Southeast Asia and there's a lot of sweet and savory in Asian food. In general, people don't think about it. But it's really nothing new for me as a chef or an eater.” With confidence in his unique skills, he struck out on his own. In 2007, Pichet opened p*ong, joining the nascent dessert bar trend. I went for my “Sweet Freak” column, and it was love at first bite.

I chose a seat at the bar—the perfect cover for a solo diner. But at p*ong, it had other advantages. Not only was I less conspicuous (
Attention
diners! Solo girl bingeing on cakes at Table 8!
), but I could watch the creation and plating of the gorgeous confections.

Out of the gate, I ordered the walnut-crusted Stilton cheese soufflé, served with basil-arugula ice cream. Nuts, cheese, and herbs. It was savory enough in my book to count as a proper dinner item, and yet creamy and luscious enough to trigger my sweet satisfaction.

The chèvre cheesecake croquette, up next, was light and fluffy, another genre-bending dessert. Little cubes of diced pineapple were the only giveaway that this wasn't what other people eat for supper.

And for the final course, I went whole-hog with the malted-chocolate Bavarian tart. It was a big hunk of creamy ganache, cloaked in chocolate crust and hiding beneath a layer of crunchy caramelized bananas. That chocolate-banana combination is one of my favorite things in the whole, wide world. With no reason for modesty, the rich tart was served alongside a delicate egg-shaped scoop of Ovaltine ice cream. I congratulated myself on choosing the perfect three-course dessert-dinner.

After that night, I was definitely smitten, not only with Pichet's refined desserts but also with his ambitious talent and unconventional approach to sweets. I became a one-woman groupie, following him over the years as he launched new businesses and consulted for others.

After p*ong, Pichet opened a bakery next door named Batch. I had faithfully waited months for it to debut and when it finally did, I went straight up to him and asked for his top five picks. This is always an interesting test for a baker or pastry chef. Do they plead that their desserts are like children and insist that they can't possibly have a favorite? Or do they act like true sweet freaks and rattle off their must-eats with a manic glint in their eye?

Pichet did neither. I could see the wheels turning in his head as his gaze darted around his gumdrop-sized bakery. I leaned in, licking my lips, eager for the chef's top picks. Then he began:

1. The
   Valrhona
   chocolate
   chunk
   cookie
   : I liked that Pichet was an ingredients snob. Fastidious bakers make better sweets.
   
2. Chocolate
   dragon
   devil's food cupcake
   : Again, made with Valrhona chocolate. That's chocolate on chocolate—a no-brainer in my book. The more chocolate, the better. Nope, you can never have too much chocolate.
   
3. Ovaltine
   pudding
   : With its silky, malty flavor and caramelized bananas, this unique dessert was too close to what I annihilated on my visit to p*ong. I knew its creamy deliciousness, but I wanted to try something new.
   
4. Passion
   -
   fruit
   rice
   pudding
   : I could appreciate that this was inspired directly from Pichet's childhood in Southeast Asia. But no matter how exotic dairy-free, coconut-vanilla rice pudding sweetened with tropical fruit sounded, I wasn't tempted.
   
5. Carrot
   salted-caramel cupcake
   : Ding! This last one got to me. Carrot cake is always served with cream cheese frosting. This was different. I liked the salted-caramel buttercream approach. I placed my order.
   

By this time, I had sampled dozens of cupcakes around the city, from banana at Billy's to pistachio at Sugar Sweet Sunshine to Out of the Kitchen's classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting that tasted suspiciously, wonderfully, like Duncan Hines. They all had their merits. But none of them were the carrot salted-caramel cupcake from Batch.

The cake was so fresh, I could tell that it had only recently cooled from the oven. Shreds of carrot and hints of cinnamon gave the batter accents both spicy and savory, which were more complex than the plain chocolate or yellow cake of other cupcakes. The frosting also wowed me with discernible flavors: the delicately bitter taste of coffee extract and the tang of caramel. Then there was a lime cream-cheese filling hiding at the center: not exactly tart or sweet, but wholly unexpected and the most perfect complement to the cake and frosting. A dusting of Malden sea salt heightened all of the flavors. Happiness erupted from my tongue, and washed over every bit of me to the tips of my toes.

I was crushed when I heard Pichet closed both p*ong and Batch not long after my arrival in Paris.
Crushed.
But never one to remain idle, Pichet had moved on to the next sweet spot called, well, Spot. On one of my trips home to New York, I dutifully revisited him. It was more of a hybrid bakery-bar than two separate businesses as p*ong and Batch had been. Otherwise, though, his sweet-savory creations were on delicious display. I sampled soft cheesecake, served elegantly spilling out of a highball glass turned on its side, with bits of huckleberry compote, crushed walnuts, and lemon foam. The white miso semifreddo, two fine slices of olive oil cake, which sat on a bed of crushed almonds alongside raspberry sorbet. And lastly, the über-rich chocolate ganache cake, which was similar to the dish I'd had years earlier at p*ong, but was now paired with green tea ice cream, crackly caramel crunches, and malted chocolate bits. Spot lived up to its predecessors. It was a different establishment, but it still had Pichet's magic.

The more things changed in New York, I realized, the more they stayed the same in Paris. While Pichet represented everything edgy and innovative in New York's dessert circles, history reigned in Paris.

Back at La Coupole, I bit into the glistening baba au rhum, the brioche oozing and squishy, a little bit obscene. The rum-soaked cake before me had royal origins and had remained unchanged for centuries. It was the perfect celebratory dessert for that night; a delicious
fin
de
soirée
. With the potent punch of alcohol rolling across my tongue, I absorbed the ghosts of Paris's past, and took a last look at the scene before me. I may have been a bit sheepish that my big night at La Coupole had been about an advertising website, not some revolutionary belief or profound novel that would stand the test of time. But it was still something, and I was still in love with my job.