6 Red-Flag Desserts That Pastry Chefs Would Never Order At A Restaurant
Pastries and pies, cookies and cake, tarts and treats … these “dessert stomach” goods are a gift from culinary science we can thank pastry chefs for. Specially trained in the science of baking (and typically, the art of cooking, too), these professionals spend their entire careers making sure the meals we enjoy are capped sweetly.
However, not all baked goods are created equal, and certainly not all are made in house by hand. At some restaurants, coffee shops and cafés, there are some standbys that make pastry chefs wary of spending their hard-earned dollars on what may likely be a disappointing choice. For instance, “If the restaurant is part of a chain, I would determine that most of the desserts happen to be made in an off-site commercial kitchen,” said Amelia Geist, the pastry chef at The Lodge at Flathead Lake, an all-inclusive dude ranch in Montana.
This is because these corporate-owned restaurants need to serve as crowd-pleasers and ensure consistent baking across all locations, which usually leads to a safe, ultra-traditional selection, per Ricky Saucedo, executive pastry chef at Atlanta’s Pata Negra Mezcaleria. “When it’s a brownie on a plate, slice of cake, lonely crème brûlée, and maybe some whipped cream if they feel crazy,” that’s his cue to skip the course. And if you see a cake on display with clearly marked, perfectly uniform cut lines indicated, it’s a likely bet that it’s from a wholesale bakery specializing in resale.
Yet “if it’s a smaller middle-of-nowhere restaurant, I’ve learned it’s usually it’s not made in-house because most restaurants can’t afford to have a pastry chef on payroll,” said Claudia Martinez, pastry chef for Michelin star-awarded Miller Union in Atlanta.
But not all of the signs of mass-produced pastries are this obvious. So we asked six notable pastry chefs what their red flags are when it comes to the dessert menu, and why they’d opt to skip the course. Here’s what they had to say.
Cheesecake
To Martinez, a classic cheesecake is one of the biggest indicators that she might be at a mass market or tourist trap restaurant.
“I won’t say the name, but I remember going to a restaurant that’s famous for their cheesecakes,” said Gus Castro, pastry chef for pastry chef for Alpharetta, Georgia’s Foundation Social Eatery and formerly for fellow Michelin star-winning restaurant Lazy Betty. “I purchased a full [cake] and was told to wait at least two hours for it to defrost since they receive them frozen,” which confirms without a doubt that it’s not made fresh in-house by a pastry chef.
Restaurants with pastry chefs may offer upscale interpretations of the traditional favorite, and Geist admitted, “If the cheesecake is made in-house or by a local bakery, I have a hard time saying no!” But that’s still not a failsafe. “During two different experiences, I was given a spoiled cheesecake, and they may have forgotten about the sugar in one of them!” Saucedo said. Since then, he’s been distrustful of cheesecakes.
Crème Brûlée
“Crème brûlée is one dessert I never order,” said Daniella Lea Rada, the executive pastry chef for Signia by Hilton Atlanta’sfive dining outlets. She elaborates, “Most restaurants use powder base to make it, they use imitation vanilla to lower the cost and hide the fakeness of the powder base. Usually it’s overcooked and grainy, and never torched properly and 99% decorated with strawberries, which is so old-fashioned.”
Brownies
“I never find myself ordering brownies or pies from a restaurant for dessert,” Geist said. “These are some of the desserts that stand out to me as being made commercially instead of from scratch,” and, she pointed out, “it’s simple and cost-efficient to buy brownie mix” to bake at home for better results. She suggests adding extra chocolate chips or a layer of peanut butter to make them more decadent, and saving your restaurant dessert choice for something more special or difficult to make.
Molten Lava Cake
Lea Rada takes her chocolate seriously, and for that reason, will never order molten lava cake. “It’s usually made with cheap chocolate with a high percentage of sugar,” she said.
Carelys Vasquez, executive pastry chef for the Forth Hotel Atlanta, said, “They tend to taste of artificial flavor enhancers,” something the both she and Reada have become highly sensitive to in their careers as pastry chefs.
Martinez echoed the quality complaints and said that “they’re nearly always mass produced and sold at high cost,” making them a poor value. Lea Rada’s advice when ordering rich chocolate desserts is to pay attention to the descriptions, as pastry chefs like to highlight their ingredients, like the percentage of cacao used.
Pies
There’s nothing like a fresh-baked pie, but unfortunately, many pastry chefs don’t trust the ones that appear on dessert menus as just that and cite them as the most commonly outsourced desserts.
“Unless it’s listed on a menu as a seasonal special, they’re often commercially sourced because they’re great for restaurants to have on hand since they’re easy to store and keep fresh in the freezer,” Geist said. Plus, it’s a default for something that “restaurants buy and a low cost and upcharge a crazy amount,” Castro said.
Vasquez lists lemon meringue and cherry pie as the top two flavors she avoids since “those usually rely on flavor enhancer instead of real fruits,” but drawing the most criticism is key lime pie. “Underwhelming, lacking in creativity, too sweet and usually frozen,” Martinez dismissed, and Lea Rada said she is repulsed by “soft crust, super sweet lime curd, and artificial essence.” To Geist, it’s simply “not something to choose if you want to eat products made fresh from scratch.”
Poorly Garnished Desserts
Everybody loves a dollop of whipped cream … right? Apparently, wrong, according to our panel of pastry chefs.
“Whipped cream star piping with mint garnish, strawberries sliced like a rose … these are giveaways that the dessert may have been supplied by a commercial baker,” Martinez revealed. What lackluster, generic, one-size-fits-all plating tells her is that the dessert doesn’t have someone with professional plating experience handling your final course.
On the other hand, too many garnishes also speak of inexperience. Castro said, “Desserts I will never order will be the ones that clearly have too much sugar, like caramel, chocolate sauce, candy pieces … To enjoy the full experience of a meal, desserts need to be light and just sweet enough for people to actually finish them.”
