Legendary desserts across the globe
Some desserts are simply timeless. They have been on restaurant menus for decades, or in some cases centuries, and they are still loved by our guests. Each of these legendary recipes does of course have its variants. Some restaurants set the tone and influence tastes.
The Dame Blanche as we know it, with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, seems to have originated in Belgium. The original Dame Blanche developed by French chef Auguste Escoffier consisted only of white ingredients such as almond milk ice cream, white peach, vanilla syrup, whitecurrants and lemon ice cream. Escoffier also developed the famous Poire belle Hélène and Pêche Melba.
Italian chef Ado Campeol is not particularly famous, but it turns out that he was the inventor of one of the most famous desserts in the world. In the best Italian tradition, there is still some argument over the origin of tiramisu, but Ado's version is officially the original one. It's hard to imagine how many variants of this classic have now been made!
The most notable dessert from top British chef Heston Blumenthal is undoubtedly egg and bacon ice cream. The waiter came to the table and asked: ‘Breakfast is served. How do you like your eggs?’ Then he broke an egg into a steel bowl. The egg was filled with a crème anglaise with bacon. Using liquid nitrogen he then turned this into ice cream right in front of you.
If you like cheesecake and you ever find yourself in New York, you should definitely visit Junior's Cheesecake in Brooklyn. Lovers of this dessert come here from all over the world to sample their cheesecake, specifically the classic New York-style cheesecake: with cream cheese baked in the oven and topped with sour cream.
A good baklava melts on your tongue. The layers of filo pastry are drenched in butter, giving a soft, pleasant mouth feel. Walnuts, pistachios or hazelnuts then impart their distinctive flavours and textures. In Istanbul, the Güllüoglu family has been baking their famous baklava since 1843: they are now the world’s largest producer of this dessert.
Typical Massimo Bottura. This quirky, spontaneous Italian chef developed a dessert which is now world famous and which only he could have invented. It supposedly came about by accident when someone dropped a dessert. They immediately saw it as a new concept for a real tongue-in-cheek dessert. The dish includes lemongrass sorbet, lemon and limoncello sabayon.
A yellow custard topped with caramelised sugar. Could any dish be simpler? Nevertheless, this dessert is popular in every restaurant. At Le Potager du Père Thierry, a restaurant in the Montmartre district of Paris, it has a very special place on the menu. The dessert is a house favourite and diners from France and all over the world visit the restaurant to enjoy it there.
Innumerable desserts and techniques have been developed by Albert and Ferran Adrià at Spanish restaurant El Bulli. Many of these techniques, such as varieties of jelly, confectionery types and ways of creating different consistencies are now used in restaurants all over the world. Their espuma, which is Spanish for foam, has changed the culinary world forever, particularly when it comes to desserts!
French JRE Chefs share their valuable experiences.
Discover more
