Page 12 - foodservice magazine August 2019

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TRADE TALK
THE RISE OF #DESSERTPORN
Opposite page: Christy Tania says her style now focusses on classic, timeless desserts, like these éclairs at her dessert bar Glacé.
TALK
In 2009, one year before Instagram launched, a croquembouche on the first season of Masterchef turned Adriano
Zumbo from Sydney bakery owner to patissier extraordinaire.
As the camera panned slowly up the backlit matrix of spun sugar that cloaked a mountain of profiteroles, jaws dropped across the country.
After the episode aired, the previously unknown chef went on to open four more Sydney stores, three Melbourne stores and a high-tea salon. He even collaborated on limited-edition Tim Tam flavours.
Today, almost nine years since Instagram was born, 50 million posts have the hashtag #dessert, and 5 million, #dessertporn (usually photos of doughnuts bursting with nutella, glitter-covered soft serve and anything giant and rainbow-coloured. You know the type). That episode of Masterchef was likely the first time many of its viewers had even seen
a croquembouche, but there are now over 50,000 photos on Instagram with its hashtag.
In the last decade, dessert-dedicated venues have not only entered the mainstream in Australia, they’ve exploded, and Instagram and shows like Masterchef have played leading roles.
“We always eat with our eyes first,” says Shiu Siew Ling, head chef at Melbourne’s Luxbite dessert bar, who has seen demand for desserts grow alongside the Instagram boom.
Founder Bernard Chu made a name
for Luxbite through Masterchef too with
his Lolly Bag Cake in 2013. Had it been created today, the pink-coated beauty would undoubtedly go viral, but Masterchef ’s coverage was as good as any influencer reposts. With its layers of “Jaffa” ganache, “spearmint leaves” buttercream, “banana lolly” syrup, and “freckle” crunch, “musk” marshmallow, and a “Redskin” glaze, it certainly is something designed to be marvelled at first.
Luxbite’s tagline is still “Home of the Lolly Bag Cake as seen on Masterchef ”. The dessert
bar now has two Melbourne stores, offering everything from viennoiseries to macaron towers, to Lolly Bag cakes in several sizes – the XXL serves 30 and rings in at $170.
Siew Ling says creating a good dessert relies on an equal marriage of flavour, texture and appearance. But a willingness to adapt to consumer demands is also a key part of
the job now, and following and targeting trends is how dessert bars thrive. This is why she creates croissants filled with boba (the jelly “bubbles” in bubble tea), and chocolate and hazelnut éclairs filled with black truffle custard and dusted with gold flakes.
Most food trends begin on Instagram, and the biggest global fads are photographable sweet dishes – hence all the glitter, rainbow colouring and gold leaf.
“Dessert is an affordable luxury,” says Melbourne pastry chef and owner of Glacé dessert bars Christy Tania. “It’s not a necessity, but it’s something that resinates with luxury and enjoyment. So to heighten that experience, it has to look good.”
Tania also owes her success in part to her Masterchef guest chef appearances.
After a career in project management, Tania turned to what she calls ‘food architecture’ and got a pastry chef job at the Ritz in
Paris. When she moved to Melbourne, she found work with Vue de Monde and Jacques Reymond, before being offered the head chef role at Melbourne’s first dessert-only degustation restaurant, Om Nom, in 2013.
“The first time I got into Masterchef [in 2013], it was my second year in Australia so I didn’t know much about how popular Masterchef was,” she says.
“When the episode aired, I was working ... and the front-of-house manager came to me and said ‘I just unplugged the phone, it couldn’t stop ringing’. I said, ‘what do you mean?’ and he said ‘they all want to come here and eat [your dessert]’. I think that was when I was like, this is going to happen.”
DESSERT-FOCUSSED BARS, RESTAURANTS AND SHOPS HAVE EXPLODED ACROSS AUSTRALIA’S FOOD SCENE IN THE LAST DECADE – ROUGHLY SINCE THE TIME MASTERCHEF AND INSTAGRAM LAUNCHED. ALEKSANDRA BLISZCZYK EXAMINES THE ROLES THE TWO HAVE PLAYED IN BUILDING PASTRY CHEFS’ CAREERS AND SHAPING AUSTRALIA’S DESSERT LANDSCAPE.
TRADE