Dessert-first dining is here

Crystalline, powdered and white — don’t worry, I’m only talking about sugar. Though not an illicit substance, it might as well be. Highly addictive, Americans consume an average of 60 pounds of sugar each year. I’m hardly innocent myself; I likely exceed that average. The reason? Desserts.

With a sweet tooth that often leads me to scan the dessert menu before the main course, I find myself calculating exactly how much room to save. Fortunately for sugar lovers like me, restaurants worldwide are elevating desserts from an afterthought to the main event.

These aren’t bakeries, but upscale establishments and bars devoted entirely to multi-course dessert dining.

“Dessert is where the magic happens. It’s emotional, fleeting, totally unnecessary — and that’s what makes it powerful. You don’t need it, so when you say yes to it, you’re choosing pleasure. You’re choosing joy,” says Will Goldfarb, founder and pastry chef of Bali, Indonesia’s award-winning restaurant, Room4Dessert.

New York’s dessert darling in the early 2000s, Goldfarb opened Room4Dessert 20 years ago before uprooting to the other side of the globe. “What started as a little rebellion, a place where dessert could finally take the spotlight, has grown into a whole sweet, edible universe in Ubud.”

Room4Dessert takes diners on a journey through three different rooms — and its garden where Goldfarb and crew collect many of the ingredients for its five snack courses — five dessert courses and five petit fours. Menus change seasonally here, but the current menu, Fight Club, highlights Indonesian ingredients like passionfruit with coconut and sago, and rosella with longan.

Goldfarb remembers the dessert heyday when these dishes were more than just an afterthought at Espai Sucre in Barcelona, ChikaLicious and P*ong in New York. “Today, you’ve got places like CODA in Berlin proving that a dessert-only menu can earn two Michelin stars and still be wildly creative. And diners are catching on,” says Goldfarb. “There’s this appetite for accessible luxury — something indulgent, but not pretentious. One perfect spoonful, then onto the next.”

Confectionery creativity has made its way back to the United States, where pastry chefs are looking past cloyingly sweet treats smothered in chocolate sauce and ooey-gooey cookies that send you into a sugar coma.

At Patisserie Tomoko in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, chef Tomoko offers a multi-course dessert and wine pairing. A steal at $28 for three courses, diners saddle up to the counter, reminiscent of a chef’s table, for a French and Japanese-inspired amuse bouche with a main dessert, followed by petit fours.  Options change frequently, but could include a black sesame crème brûlée with sake ice cream, a Mont Blanc, or a hojicha chocolate soufflé.

In San Antonio, Texas, Nicosi serves an eight-course tasting menu in a 20-seat chef’s table experience. There are no menus here, but there is a no-phone policy to encourage full immersion into each whimsical course, perfected after hundreds of hours of research and taste-testing. Prix-fixe dishes change every three months, but feature magazine-worthy creations like The Bees’ Nest, made with toasted honey, Franco-Suisse meringue, vanilla pear, apple compote and whipped honey ganache — each paired with a beverage.

Riding high off making dessert the destination, the brand new Bar Ana in Atlanta is a late-night dessert and cocktail bar. A rotating selection of five elevated desserts, pastries and a selection of daiquiris will have Latin inspiration from James Beard Award-nominated chef Claudia Martinez’s roots.

“I think it’s becoming more important because it’s a focus on different dining experiences,” says Martinez. “A different way to end your meal and caters to those who prefer to indulge more in sweets.”

Bar Ana will also feature an exclusive three-course dessert tasting menu, designed for just ten people per night. “It’s a more creative way to have desserts; it’s not just one note in flavor, but a way to enjoy desserts in different categories,” she says. “From light acidic to sweet and bold, it showcases a different way to experience desserts.”

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