Dessert Storm: The bar at Chikalicious.   (Photo: Rick Lew)

And for Dessert

For old times’ sake, I’ll take one of the toppling, overpriced chocolate ziggurats at LE CIRQUE, and if I had to choose just one newfangled soufflé in town, it would probably be the banana-and-passion-fruit-flavored one at ATELIER (served with tiny chocolates), and for pure chocolate pleasure, I still like the Sacher torte at CAFÉ SABARSKY and the little molten-chocolate-filled beignets at TOWN, accompanied by a gianduja bombe. For simple, retro goodness, I’ll take pastry chef Lauren Dawson’s wonderful apple-cider doughnuts (served with fresh apple compote and maple cream) at Marco Canora’s newly opened HEARTH, and upon gentle prodding, my discerning, long-suffering, sweetly dyspeptic, suddenly press-shy wife hopes I won’t forget BLUE HILL, where the sophisticated $25 “dessert flight” might, on any given night, consist of deconstructed chocolate and pear beignets, mounds of chocolate bread pudding supported by scoops of vanilla and praline ice cream, and medallions of soft, ripe avocado topped with salted caramel and a spoonful of lime sorbet.

My wife didn’t accompany me on my covert, quick-strike visit to the excellent JACQUES TORRES CHOCOLATE boutique on Water Street in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood. But if she had, I’m sure she would have joined the animated flock of (mostly female) chocolate fanatics who sipped their cups of “Wicked Hot Chocolate” (spiked with ancho and chipotle chilis) while nibbling intently on inventive Torres creations like chocolate-mint tea (dark-chocolate ganache coated in milk chocolate and infused with mint tea) and “Love Potion #9” (dark chocolate infused with more dark chocolate). In the evenings, you’ll find a similar sort of crowd bellied up to the marble bar at CHIKALICIOUS, the bustling, impeccably clean, white-trimmed, all-dessert space on East 10th Street. Two of the three proprietors are genteel, highly efficient female pastry chefs who, for $12, will whip up a three-course prix fixe gourmet dessert before your very eyes. Begin with a little taste of chocolate-flavored tea gelée with coconut sorbet and top it off with a fromage blanc island cheesecake.

Related:

• Archive: “Cover Story”
• Articles by Adam Platt
• Table of Contents: January 5, 2004 issue of New York | Subscribe!