 "Jalebi caviar, saffron glaze with pistachio rabdi")
Ready for a cucumber sorbet or a tart sprinkled with sunflower cress and microgreens? It seems that the time is up for your regular tiramisu and cheesecake, with the dessert menu turning into a veritable canvas for chefs to unleash their creativity on. "Till now, desserts were that part of the menu that chefs and restaurateurs didn't pay a lot of attention to, which was really sad as people love a good sweet ending to a meal," says Zorawar Kalra, founder and managing director, Massive Restaurants that owns brands like Masala Library and Farzi Cafe.
Jalebi caviar, saffron glaze with pistachio rabdi
There are chefs who are adding a whole new twist to your traditional mithai. Leading the change is Brar. The idea is to rediscover regional Indian desserts in a unique Western style. "Our USP is that our desserts are entirely eggless," says Brar. At English Vinglish, you can try the doodha tartlet with whipped kesar pista dark chocolate ganache and reduced, sweetened balsamic vinegar or the mithai teacake skewers with badami ganache and kopra crumb and the kheer khadam truffles with five-spiced ganache and toasted caramelised kaddu ke beej. Another example of a reinvented mithai can be seen at Masala Library in Mumbai where the jalebi is deconstructed into a caviar and served on a bed of pistachio rabdi along with puffs of saffron foam.
Chef Ranveer Brar (left)
One is seeing avid use of ingredients that are not typically associated with desserts - salt being on top of the list. "Salts of various kinds work wonders with a dessert. For instance, volcano salt adds a tinge of smokiness," says Neeraj Tyagi, executive chef, Shangri-La's-Eros Hotel, New Delhi. Then there are savoury ingredients like cucumber that are becoming popular for their subtle flavours. For instance, Chef Kalyan of Fatty Bao does a unique cucumber sorbet. "I don't think cucumber has ever been used in a dessert," he says. Such pairings make for memorable meals, which linger on in the mind days after having savoured them. Both Kalyan and Chef Ranveer Brar, who recently launched the first outlet of English Vinglish in Mumbai in association with Gangour Sweets, have a word of caution: Keep the flavours simple, use visual deception instead.
At Farzi Cafe, one of the most popular desserts is the Milky Way, which is a complete representation of the galaxy. It's made live on the table and comes with small rounds of white chocolate-coconut ganache, chocolate pepper balls, blueberry cream, gajar ka halwa, along with nut rocks and batashas to represent the celestial objects. In a dramatic gesture, a ball of orange mousse is broken open to represent the Big Bang. At Delhi's Fatty Bao, Chef Kalyan too adds a sense of drama with The Egg - a dessert that looks like an egg, but tastes nothing like it.
Lemon grass creme brulee
What helps is that people are more accepting of novel flavours now. "People want to try something new. They are looking for a unique experience," says Vikram Arora, Chef de Cuisine, the Four Seasons Hotel, Mumbai. At his restaurant, San-Qi, the lemongrass creme brulee and the neon green pandan crepes are extremely popular. The new menu, will carry this repertoire forward with a deconstructed Yuzu tart. "Yuzu is a Japanese lemon. So, the dessert will feature a crumble underneath the tart, a Yuzu custard instead of the regular lemon one, and microgreens on top to give the look of a herb garden," he says.
At Fatty Bao too, Kalyan is experimenting with Asian ingredients such as black sesame and green tea. His creation, The Zen Forest, is literally spring on the platter with green tea moss and chocolate soil as the base, logs of parfait made with Yuzu, a microwave black sesame sponge rock, white sesame nougatine, beetroot and black pepper sorbet, chocolate twigs made with 70 per cent Valrhona and microgreens. "I was inspired by Albert Adria's [chef at Michelin 3-star restaurant, elBulli, in Spain] recipe for the microwave sponge.
