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Type: Dessert
Hours: Tues.-Thurs. 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 10 a.m.-11 p.m., closed Mon. (closed Sun. until after Labor Day)
Prices: Desserts $.65-$6.75
Other establishments listed in this review:
STELLINA
47 Main Street, Watertown
(617) 924-9475
Hours: Sun. 5-9 p.m., Mon.-Thurs. 5:30-9:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5:30-10 p.m.
Prices: Desserts $5
BLUE ROOM
1 Kendall Square, Cambridge
(617) 494-9034
Prices: Desserts $.65-$6.75
Hours: Sun.-Thurs. 5:30-10p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5:30-11p.m.
BRISTOL LOUNGE AT THE FOUR SEASONS
200 Boylston Street, Boston
(617) 351-2053
Hours: Lunch daily 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; dinner Sun.-Thurs. 5-11:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5 p.m.-12:30 a.m., Viennese dessert buffet Fri.-Sat. 9 p.m.-midnight.
Prices: Desserts $6.50-$8.50; Viennese buffet $12.
INTRIGUE AT BOSTON HARBOR HOTEL
70 Rowes Wharf, Boston
(617) 856-7744
Hours: Daily: breakfast 7-11 a.m., lunch 11: a.m.-4:30 p.m., dinner 4:30-11p.m. (Sunday until 10 p.m.)
Prices: Desserts $4.50-$5.75
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TEA-TRAY IN THE SKY
1796 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
(617) 492-8327
Restaurant reviewed 09/03/98 by Lise Stern
We admit it. Dessert is our favorite course. We have even been known to check the dessert menu before ordering an entree. Restaurants around town offer an array of creative final courses; the problem, we find, is that by the time we finish our entree, all we have room for is the barest taste.
To truly appreciate a fine dessert, we like to go out just for this course. Some restaurants are amenable to dessert-only visits at any time. Others request that you sit in their lounge or bar if the restaurant is especially busy. But if you go late enough (after 9) or early enough (before 6:30), you may have your choice of seats.
The desserts and restaurants described here are not the definitive list of where to go, but these will please anyone with a sweet tooth.
A must visit is Cindy Gold's Tea-Tray in the Sky in Cambridge, a small, narrow storefront with seating for 19. As the name implies, tea is the specialty here, and shelves along one wall display handmade ceramic teapots, cups, and other tea paraphernalia. You can order a pot of brewed-to-order tea from a list of 75 varieties. Try the homemade chai, which goes well with any dessert.
There are two categories of desserts here: plated and pastry. Pastries are displayed in the crowded glass case at the back of the restaurant. Among them are intensely flavored chocolate espresso cookies, roasted fruit frangipani tarts with ground almonds and brandy, carrot cake, biscotti, and truffles; you can't go wrong with any of them.
But it is with the plated desserts that Gold truly shines. Servings are quite generous. The chocolate citrus baklava is a culinary work of art. Three diamonds of phyllo dough layered with finely chopped walnuts, pistachios, and Callebaut bittersweet chocolate are glazed with an amazing reduced honey-citrus sauce and garnished with toothsome candied orange peel and a small scoop of mango ice cream.
Equally wonderful is the ginger, lemon, and blueberry Napoleon. Ginger lace cookies are layered with a delightfully tangy lemon mousse and fresh blueberries, surrounded by a pool of peach coulis and dollops of blueberry sauce.
Chocophiles will appreciate the bittersweet fallen chocolate souffle. It is served with peanut butter mousse and homemade peanut brittle-- a sophisticated twist on a comfort food.
Stellina in Watertown can be very busy and noisy during prime dining hours -- if you come then, be prepared to sit at the bar for dessert. Pastry chef Karen Citino's desserts are definitely worth a visit. Our hands-down favorite is the honey marsala figs with ginger zabaglione: Ripe figs are poached in honey and marsala, then chilled and covered with a delicate ginger zabaglione sprinkled with a thin layer of caramelized sugar.
Six or seven cookies come in the plated assortment, including a chocolate almond biscotti, a powdered sugar-covered pecan butterball, and a sesame-anise cookie.
Chocolate desires will be satisfied with the cappuccino mocha terrine: layers of delicate chocolate mousse, cinnamon meringue, and chocolate cake, covered with vanilla buttercream and chocolate ganache, then drizzled with a chocolate Sambuca sauce. Wow.
A lighter dessert is the lemon berry summer plate, a lemon pound cake topped with lemon curd and fresh blueberries and peaches and drizzled with a raspberry-strawberry sauce. A delightful combination of sweet, tangy, creamy, and cakey.
The perfect dessert stop for a post-Kendall Square cinematic experience is the Blue Room in Cambridge. Their desserts change monthly, with some constants. They are generally straightforward -- no architectural creations here -- and perfectly rendered.
The creme brulee, with flavors that vary with the season, is superb. The current version is a heady barrel-aged bourbon creme brulee. The custard is silky smooth with a nice, generous layer of caramelized sugar.
Another regular is the rich warm chocolate cake, surrounded by a dark, intensely flavored chocolate sauce.
You can still get the marvelous blueberry-raspberry shortcake (chef Steve Johnson will soon be removing it from the menu). It's served with light homemade vanilla bean ice cream. The shortcake is crispy on the outside, flaky and buttery inside. The very fresh berries are topped with tangy raspberry coulis. The restaurant is often busy and seats dinner only until quite late, but the bar is always open for dessert.
Hotel restaurants have the most flexible hours when it comes to desserts. The Boston Harbor Hotel on Rowes Wharf has its own upscale restaurant, but its more casual cafe, Intrigue, offers some quite tasty, reasonably priced desserts. The room is spacious and comfortable, and overlooks the harbor; on nice days you can also eat outside. Desserts change during lunch and dinner.
We liked the pies here best -- a lunchtime warm blueberry pie is great. It is an individual-sized pie with a delectable crust, served with homemade vanilla ice cream whimsically decorated with dots of caramel and sliced almonds to look like a mouse. The evening caramelized peach butter tart has an entirely different crust, flaky and almost puff pastry-like, and is quite fine. It is served with a generous amount of raspberry sauce -- not the decorative sprinkling that some places are fond of -- and topped with whipped cream flecked with finely chopped fresh mint.
For the true dessert deal of the city, the Bristol Lounge's Viennese dessert buffet takes the cake, literally. On Friday and Saturday nights, from 9 until midnight, the Bristol, at the Four Seasons hotel on Boylston Street, offers an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet. What is remarkable is that almost every dessert offered is simply fabulous. There is a choice of about a dozen, and they change all the time. Chilled Grand Marnier souffle melts in your mouth. The chocolate satin cake hits all the right texture and flavor notes. Even the simple angel food cake with fresh fruit and creme anglaise is just right.
Crepes are a specialty, and vary from week to week; if you're lucky, you'll get the wonderful bananas Foster, served with caramel-rum sauce and homemade vanilla ice cream. The cheese apple crumble tart was one of the best uses for apples we've tried in a long time.
The Bristol Lounge is open all day, and you can sample individual servings of a half-dozen desserts, paying a la carte prices. The room is large but comfortably elegant, and live music plays during the buffet. There are standard tables and lower tables next to upholstered chairs and couches.
Tips & hits
