From plate to cone

Friday, Jul 29th, 2016

Almost 3 years ago a friend asked me “if you were to open your own place, what would it be?”
As a pastry chef, it was a tough question to answer. I had been working the fine dining pastry station for 15 years. My first thought was “can’t I just open a restaurant built around my pastry station?”

Maybe as a future dream project, but realistically in my small town, it would be way too much of a gamble. For a restaurant chef, I think that question opens up many possibilities. Fine dining, casual, market driven, seafood, bbq, gastropub, winebar, French, Italian, American, Mexican, Vietnamese influences…now chefs are opening restaurants that cater to casual and fine dining, pleasing everyone, in buildings with multiple floors!

For a pastry chef, especially one that solely worked at very intimate, high end restaurants, the avenues are a little more limited. A dessert bar WOULD be a dream, like a sushi restaurant where I could stand behind a counter and do 3 to 4 course tasting menus, where the pastry chef has control over the front of house, the design, the service standards, where I could engage with the guests and not be considered an afterthought, as sometimes happens in standard restaurants.