[This post was originally published in June 2009]

After success in a certain bike race, the DessertBuzz editorial team decided to head to one of their absolute favorite restaurants for dessert: Dovetail, on the upper west side.  One of the best things about Dovetail is that they constantly change their dessert menu.  Dovetail’s pastry chef, Vera Tong, seems to like to mix classic options with a few experimental desserts.  I still regret not trying the grape soup that I saw last winter, but I did eat the peanut butter pretzel with sea salt and beer ice cream.  Edgy, but not as hectic as Wd-50. . .

On Sunday’s Mother’s Day menu there were a couple intriguing choices but I had it narrowed down to either the pain perdu or the chocolate hazelnut fondant.  Normally, I always go with the chocolate option – that’s DessertBuzz Law #1: when in doubt, go with the dessert that contains dark chocolate. However, in this case,  I knew I still had 5 artisanal dark chocolate bars waiting at home that were going to be eaten this week so I went with the pain perdu.  Truth be told, I had to ask what pain perdu was.  But now, after reading all about it on the internets, I am of course an expert.  Pain perdu means “lost bread” and it was a way for people to reclaim stale bread by soaking it in eggs and milk and then frying it.  Which takes us to DessertBuzz law #2: when you can’t apply rule #1 go with the fried dessert option.  Of course DessertBuzz law #3 is:  If you ever see a dessert that is both fried and contains dark chocolate you must order 2 servings and take one home to photograph it for a feature on Dessertbuzz.

Anywho- the pain perdu was like a light, evenly fried, French toast saturated with a flavorful egg and milk mixture.  It looks like it was finished off with a blow torch too (but that is just speculation on my part).  The pool of caramel below the bread was even tastier than if it was made with real maple syrup.  The berries were 5-star as was the vanilla bean ice cream.  The picture really says it all. The also gave us 2 mini-red velvet cupcakes and 2 small tea cakes to take home. Damn I love this place.  I plan to talk some teammates into going back this week for more.

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One of the best ways to experience a 3-star New York Times restaurant at a fraction of the cost, is to go for lunch or in this case for brunch. The Dovetail brunch is very dessert heavy. It includes a basket of fresh baked bread items; canapes, which include a yogurt parfait and a duck meatball amuse; a main course and a mini-dessert sampler. I should note some of the unique and heavy-duty savory brunch items such as short rib lasagna (!) and sirloin eggs.

It’s interesting that Dovetail has such a dessert-heavy brunch.   I have long been aware how how great their desserts are but I didn’t know their customer base felt the same as me until I saw the 4-dessert sampler and additional bread pudding pre-dessert. By the way, who ever heard of a pre-dessert for 3 course brunch?

My guest and I both thought the bread pudding, which came as the “pre-dessert”  was the best offering.   It was more like like a perfect, syrup-soaked piece of french toast.   I also really liked the devil’s food cake which packed a strong chocolate flavor but was not too heavy.  The apple crisp, which has been part of this brunch for a while is also very good.  The apple crisp is excellent, it’s very fresh and not too sweet.  The cheesecake, like the devil’s food, is a one-bite dessert that has a lot of house-made  components, such as the flaky cookie base and a blob of jelly.   The final dessert-bite was a brownie with whipped cream.

Recommended: Bread Pudding, also sometimes available as a “pain purdu”.

Dovetail is located at 103 West 77th Street.

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Seriouseats New York was right about the pasta at Marea, a restaurant that is supposed to specialize in seafood.   They recommended a number of pasta dishes and in my opinion their pasta was far superior to their seafood.  Not because the seafood wasn’t good but because the pasta was so spectacular.

Marea’s fusilli with red wine braised octopus and bone marrow was the best pasta dish I have ever eaten.  That’s EVER.   For pics and a review see the SE feature on Marea here.

Their desserts were superb as well.  The house made sorbet was very flavorful and perfect for the diner that has already consumed 6 courses.

The vanilla-bean-specked panna cotta had great flavor and the accompanying scoop of dark chocolate gelato was absolutely stellar.  The hazelnut torte had a smooth dense texture and great flavors of dark chocolate and hazelnut that were not too sweet.

Recommended: House made sorbet, and savory must have: fusilli with red wine braised octopus and bone marrow.

Marea is located on 240 Central Park South. Their web site is here.

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With all the positive reviews and hype about Dovetail’s desserts and its pastry chef Vera Tong, I was scared of a massive let-down along the lines of Godfather III.  What if the desserts sucked? So it was with adjusted (though still sky-high) expectations that I went to Dovetail Saturday night for my sweetie’s birthday.   Dovetail upended those expectations, and then obliterated them.

Everything was superb, not just the desserts.   The service from the reception staff to the Maitre D’ and wait staff was friendly and warm.  Every dish on the chef’s tasting menu was exciting (though I regret upgrading to the grilled foie gras with cherries and fennel). Best of all our waiter had no issue granting us two different desserts instead of the standard identical tasting selections.

The pre-dessert on the tasting menu was a passion fruit pudding with “fizzy meringue” and raspberry sorbet.  This was more than just a traditional sorbet palate cleanser.  The meringue was tangy and slightly tart which contrasted really well with the sweet and flavorful pudding.  The sorbet was also tangy and all three textures went together really well.

I ate three full dessert courses (yes, it was J’s birthday not mine, what’s your point?).  My favorite was the S’mores dish.  This dish included (follow closely now): house-made marshmallows with coffee shortbread (dusted with graham crackers?) and three layers of chocolate: milk, semi-sweet and a 70+.  Served with ice cream.  The magic in this dessert was the crunchy snap of the shortbread cookies with the smooth and intensely flavorful dark chocolate in the the triple chocolate layer.  Like a 5-Star Twix made from the finest ingredients. . Next up was the bread pudding with caramelized banana and bacon brittle with vanilla rum ice cream.  Dovetail’s small-ish bread pudding was the opposite of Blue Ribbon’s famous monster serving of chocolate bread pudding. While Blue Ribbon goes big and features crunchy toasted bread dripping with chocolate sauce, Dovetail goes compact and throws in all kinds of flavors like that bacon and caramelized banana. The bacon, vanilla rum ice cream and cookie all work well with the caramel soaked bread.  Don’t tell Blue Ribbon bacon goes so well with bananas.

The peanut butter milk chocolate pretzel log with sea salt and beer ice cream (made with Guinness) seemed really experimental, like something from WD-50 (I had white beer ice cream in a dessert there once).  That was good, but this tasted better, again with multiple textures and flavors and savory sweet contrast.

They sent us home with some delicious house made peanut butter granola.  They also gave me a tour of the kitchen and introduced me to Vera Tong who took time to chat with me for a minute or two.  There is no question in my mind that she will be one of the next huge pasty chefs who will have name recognition beyond foodies.  I can’t wait to sit at Dovetail’s bar and try the rest of her current desserts this fall. . Out of all the high end restaurants that DessertBuzz’s budget allows me to take in, Dovetail is in my top 3 in the forward thinking dessert category.  Its right up there with Craft (while Karen DeMasco was there), WD-50, Ubuntu and Bouley in my humble opinion.

Dovetail’s website is here. Dovetail is located here. More of the “Best Fancy Restaurant” desserts in New York City.

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A great experience all around. So much has been written about the exotic food from WD-50 I am not sure a hack like me could add anything.  I found the service to be really superb.  Friendly and warm especially for a downtown hipster restaurant.  I asked if I could poke my head in the kitchen and they gave me a tour and introduced me to the man himself, Wylie Dufresne, who had time to wipe the sweat from his brow and tell me he would like to taste some of the desserts at Kyotofu if he ever gets the time, which I could tell was never.  He was very friendly too and his style took me back to my college days at Hampshire.

The pre-dessert contained fig, cremini mushrooms, soy milk, fresh dates, sherry vinegar foam and sherry broth.  If any of these ingredients are incorrect please don’t email me nasty letters. The best thing about the whole “molecular gastronomy” dishes are that they look beautiful and photograph well and with Wd-50 at least, they tasted well too.

The first dessert course: coconut mousse, cucumber puree, cashews and cashew twist brittle.

Yuzu curd ground pistachio puree chopped and whole shortbread dollops of spruce yogurt

Soft white chocolate, potato, malt, white beer ice cream

Cherry covered chocolate mousse, dehydrated cherries molasses, lime.

Wd-50’s food isn’t bad either:

Wd-50 on a Google map.

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I finally got to Craft, the real deal. The chocolate souffle lived up to expectations and set a new standard. I will forever look at other souffles through Craft colored glasses.

Served scalding hot in its own copper kettle pot this souffle packed rich deep dark chocolate flavor.

The pre-deflated un-punctured chocolate souffle. It seemed a shame to put a hole in this piece of art.

Recommended: Souffle

Craft is located at 43 East 19 St. Their website is here.

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