How London’s Most Innovative Chefs Are Reinventing the Classic Baba au Rhum
Fill in the blank: Baba au…? If the only word that springs to mind is “rhum,” then you clearly haven’t dined out in England’s capital lately. At Da Terra in East London, chef Rafael Cagali finishes his signature baba with a tot of aged cachaça from his native Brazil. Further west, Valentin Jollivet—executive pastry chef at Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester—made waves at a special dinner when he broke with house style and spiked his version with the Japanese spirit shochu.
The replacement liquors may sound out of left field but, in fact, have historical precedent. The baba au rhum that we know today started life as just a baba (the Polish word for “old woman” and its diminutive form, babka, became a sobriquet for the cakes in the 1640s), and a dry one at that. Legend has it that the dessert gained its defining moisture in the early 18th century, when Nicolas Stohrer, head pastry chef to the exiled King of Poland, Duke Stanislas of Lorraine, revived a stale yeasted cake with sweet wine. Stohrer was later put in charge of baking at Versailles and went on to open his own patisserie in Paris in 1730—which you can still visit today—but it would be over a century before rum become canon.
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The rum-baba renaissance currently sweeping London sees this long-standing convention as a negotiable starting point. Hélène Darroze, the French-born chef whose eponymous restaurant at the Connaught in Mayfair holds three Michelin stars, puts it well. “For me, making baba is a way of honoring and preserving a piece of my own culinary history,” she says. “I continue to make baba because it allows me to be creative within the framework of tradition.”
She recently served a variation on the theme with nigella Chantilly, bergamot, and Buddha’s-hand citrus. But whatever the accompaniments, Darroze’s baba is served with a choice of three vintage Armagnacs her family makes in Les Landes.
Da Terra’s cachaça baba, the penultimate course on Cagali’s tasting menu (about $310 per person), spent almost six months in development. “I very nearly gave up,” says Cagali. Part of the process, which resulted in a plate piled with pistachio ice cream and a dollop of N25 Kaluga-hybrid caviar, was finding the right roe. “It was a big struggle to get the balance of saltiness and smokiness without any fishiness,” he explains. But the cachaça, made of sugarcane juice, is not such a big leap from rum, made from molasses. Cagali uses two versions: a sweeter one by Abelha, mixed with a dash of lovage oil for freshness, and an aged one by Weber Haus for finishing. “It’s one of those desserts,” Cagali adds. “There are people that get it, and there are people that don’t get it.”
But in spite of the Dorchester’s aforementioned experiment, Ducasse’s dining room typically sticks to the French standard. It’s served in a bespoke silver dish with gently whipped Chantilly cream and a choice of five rums. Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from asking for a glass of shochu—or any other liqueur you might be curious about.
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