Quick note: Apologies for skipping a post last weekend. The whole new job and travel thing has made writing tougher than usual, but I’m back on it. The cooking app plus a couple other fun projects should be ready for release fairly soon. If you’re starting to disappear into Claude Code like my friend Brooks Reitz and want to chat more about what we’re doing over at Every to help out, hmu.
It’s difficult not to indulge at Amanda Perdomo’s Good Morning Cafe, a pop-up the award-winning pastry chef (and a close friend) is running at Strange Delight in Brooklyn. I swung by a couple weeks ago and stared down cheesy grits, a breakfast sandwich and the special for the day: this strawberry shortcake éclair.
Multiple members of the staff said the éclair was their favorite thing Amanda had ever made. It was up there for me, too. Like many expert pastry chefs, Amanda is at her best when she’s blending nostalgic memories and crowd-pleasing creativity. Desserts are supposed to make people happy. The little touch of shortcake-inspired crumble across the top did just that.
You feel a specific kind of pastry-chef inspired construction in the breakfast sandwich as well. The sesame bun is handmade, as is the complex pepper jelly spread across it. The egg, the true star of the dish, is baked gently in the style of soufflé. It’s better without the bacon, more balanced with more room to let each component shine.
Later that night, I swung by Nick Curtola’s I Cavallini. Nick is another chef it’s impossible for me to approach objectively. He wrote maybe my favorite cookbook of the decade, an inspiration for dozens of home meals since it was released. It feels like his second restaurant is finding a nice groove. I wasn’t surprised that my favorite dish was a simple winter salad, featuring folded up chicories in a mix of unidentifiable vinegars. That’s Nick on a plate. The dishes, like a cold beef tendon with onion and a farfallone with calabrian chili butter, are undeniably delicious. But there’s a subtle challenge coursing through each — sometimes for the cooks, sometimes for the diners. It’s never cheffy for the sake of being showy, but, yes, it’s still just a little cheffy.
The dessert menu was bigger than I expected. The tiramisu has received raves. I stared at gelatos containing apricot kernel or and cinnamon with prunes before deciding on a sage flavor with candied meyer lemon.
A friend has a go-to, specific comment for desserts like those on the I Cavallini menu when we dine out together: “Savory chef made this.” It’s been bouncing around my head more in the past few months of meals. It’s not necessarily a critique. Savory chefs make plenty of beautiful desserts, like Nick’s or the pine nut cookie with cucumber cremeux and pickled rhubarb that Miles Thompson has parked on the Baby Bistro menu since opening. But overwhelmingly they approach the final course differently from a dedicated pastry chef.
“We don’t have a pastry chef at The Four Horsemen. We never have,” Nick writes in his cookbook. “Honestly, we don’t have the space in our tiny kitchen for a dedicated section. But I like how that forces the team and I to consider and appreciate the sweet side of the menu.”
When creating sweet things, we look at what’s in season and see what feels right for the moment. We leave the strawberry and cherry desserts for those long summer days and save the figs and quince for times when you wish you could end your meal by the fireplace with a blanket over your lap and a glass of brandy; bright in spring to celebrate surviving another dull winter, and warm and nurturing around the holidays.”
Travis Lett echoes a similar sentiment in the Gjelina cookbook, writing:
“For the most part, I’ve found high-concept restaurant desserts fail to satisfy after an epic meal. Multiple purées, tuiles, quenelles of strange gelatos, and dehydrated crumbles all look cool, but generally don’t hit that soulful note I am after. Even the words ‘pastry chef’ tend to carry pretense that suggests an elevated style. In our kitchen, the word ‘baker’ is more applicable to the style of desserts we want to serve, desserts your grandmother or mother might have baked if you were lucky. It says something about our desserts that our most popular is, essentially, a pudding.
Understated, seasonal, but satisfying—this is what we aim for.”
The Gjelina cookbook was published more than 10 years ago, but Travis’ approach has only become more pervasive. It’s one reason the British invasion into American dining is hitting so hard. Done well, these puddings round out homey, comforting, approachable meals that so many diners are seeking in the wake of peak reservation. You’ll rarely find me complaining about butterscotch puddings, miso caramels, panna cottas with seasonal fruit, date cakes, semifreddos and savory gelatos with only a couple components.
Travis is also right about those cringe fine-dining desserts, a thing I’m thankful might be lost to time and Top Chef Season 13. At the unfortunately now-closed l’Arpaon in Paris, the kitchen of savory chefs closed out a gorgeous meal with a way-too-high concept riff on a hazelnut affogato. It included a table-side pour and textures just slightly awry. It was too cute by half.
After a few bites, I was overwhelmed by memories of the Torrisi affogato, a gift from former pastry chef Stephanie Prida before she left Major Food Group. This is a pastry chef’s dessert. Layers of vanilla ice cream are topped with a fudge sauce, mascarpone cream and coffee granita. It’s a classic elevated to the highest possible levels, something that looks straightforward before you actually try to make ice cream or granita with such excellence.
This is a part of dining out I don’t want to lose. Economics make having a dedicated pastry program challenging. So do basic restaurant logistics — there’s little space, and little time for the cooks on garde manger to prioritize a six-component cake plating. Meanwhile, true star pastry chefs often can find better lifestyles, incomes and demand free from being a cog in a restaurant machine.
Here are a few things that give me hope: Some restaurant groups are still willing to spend here. That can show up in the form of hiring a consulting pastry chef at opening, like Amanda did for JR & Sons, giving them a stacked lineup of on-brand desserts their team can continue to execute after she moves on to the next project. Crevette in the West Village is rumored to have a $40,000 ice cream machine that powers their unforgettable soft serve. (Future restaurant investors, please take note). Dessert still travels well on TikTok and Instagram.
If you care about great pastry, you’re most likely to get it after waiting in a line before 10am. That’s fine. But a real pastry program makes a restaurant complete. Pastry chefs think in different ways. You see it through Brooks Headley’s genius at Superiority Burger and both essential Natasha Pickowicz cookbooks, just like you see it at Quarter Sheets and Tandem Bakery.
A few stellar desserts make a meal memorable. Whether you dine out a few times a month or a few times a year, you should close out the night with a sense of wonder. A moment of celebration and joy and indulgent comfort. You should order that extra amaro and have it come with one more dessert plate than seems reasonable. I guarantee that if it’s done right, it’s all you’ll be talking about on your way home.