After multiple months and a multi million dollar budget, Fairmont Palliser Calgary reviles it’s largest renovation of the last 48 years to the public;
The Hawthorn Dinning Room
And with its new look comes a new menu.
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Drinks… but for me, I was there with one thing in mind;
The Desserts of Hawthorn
After sitting down with Pastry Chef Narendra Vasireddy and hearing of his vision to design a dessert offering to trigger memories that would take you “back to your childhood”, I was even more excited to dig in.
Chef Vasireddy 13 year path in pastry has allowed him to tour the world, from Dubai, Singapore and most recently Victoria’s Fairmont Empress, creating unforgettable sweet treats.
Now in Calgary, Chef has taken over 2 months, which has included trials and tastings of hundreds of variations, that has now perfected a menu that offers stand alone desserts worthy of a sweet and purposeful visit.
Let’s fork (and spoon) in to this menu.
Warm Strawberry & Peach Gallette ($12)
This free formed pie crust has all the feels of Grandmas kitchen and is attentively even served on one of her best plates.
Loaded with Strawberry and Peach, topped with fresh mint, this dessert is the appitamy of home-cooking with out all the clean up.
Cinnamon Toast Crunch Mille Crepe Caramel ($12)
Saturday Morning Cartoons never tasted this good and certainly were never this complex.
The dessert combines 20 to 25 layers of thinly stacked crapes layered individually layered with decadent cinnamon whip cream that’s as rich and velvety as a sinful buttercream.
Piled with Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal and drizzled with caramel, this dessert is a textual and flavourful experience unlike any other.
Lemon Verbena Panna Cotta Sweet Nut Praline ($11)
Served thin a shallow like the plastic backyard pools we grew up with, this moment is also shared best with friends.
And much like cinnamon toast crunch mille crepe, this dessert serves a nod to our childhood breakfasts.
Made with Lemon Verbena, the creamy panda cotta is reminiscent of a homogenized froot loop milk.
Salted Chocolate Caramel Tart Dulce De Leche Whip ($12)
Made with a salted caramel tart, this dessert is topped 50/50 with a velvety rich chocolate ??? and white chocolate dolce whip.
A complicated dessert to get right as the combination of Dulce De Leche takes a skilled hand to mix with cream with out having it separate or turn granulated.
This dessert is as smooth as it gets.
Ice Cream Sandwich Mexican Chocolate Sauce ($11)
My babysitter in elementary school celebrated Friday’s with ice cream sandwiches but none to the level or likes of Hawthorn’s.
Using puffed dough to form the cookies and only assembled upon Oder, the texture is delivered crispy and creamy.
Served with a side of cinnamon spiced Mexican chocolate, this dessert has me living out my churro fantasies.
5 desserts, but we’re still not done.
The dessert menu, which also includes Three Scoops of Seasonal Ice Cream & Sorbet ($11), has one VERY special and secretive dessert.
Surprise Me
But there’s a a catch.
Surprise Me is not in the menu and how you’ll get it…. Well, that’s the Surprise.
I’m not at liberty to tell you how, why or even if this dessert will make it to your table, but what I can tell you is that it has ALL the bells, whistles complete with a Kalamansi Fruit surprise.
This is a dessert you will not forget!
Chef Narendra Vasireddy has very thoughtfully created a unique offering of desserts, each creativity different from the next and all created to invoke a special memories from the past or to create a new one.
But don’t wait too long to experience them, the Hawthorn menu is set to change every 3-4 months.
Enjoy now, or forever hold your peace.
Mr. Fab desserts
