RISTYLE
sugarbird
sin
gracie’s
dangerously decadent
taste
the best places to indulge your dessert cravings words and photos by david dadekian
28 fall 2012
A
s with so many culinary delights, whatever your dessert desires are, Rhode Island has them covered. Whether it’s the perfect fine-dining dessert experience, or a happily sinful cake, you’ll find them in Providence, and in Johnston there’s even a gluten-free bakery that will have you clamoring for more, regardless of a gluten allergy. Gracie’s on Washington Street in Providence is one of a select few restaurants in the area to employ a full-time pastry chef, and a remarkably talented one at that. Chef Melissa Denmark, originally from Maryland, moved to Providence when she attended Johnson & Wales University where she graduated from the Baking and Pastry Arts program. Denmark has been at Gracie’s for over two years and may be the best pastry chef in Rhode Island. But don’t just take our word for it, this past spring Denmark was one of only 50 pastry chefs in the country nominated by Food & Wine magazine for their “People’s Best New Pastry Chef ” award. Chef Denmark’s desserts are loaded with unrestrained flavors, but they never seem unbalanced or over the top. They are also some of the most beautiful desserts you’ll ever see, artfully built and arranged to look as good as they taste, but not overdesigned or too precious to happily attack with a fork or spoon. The desserts, like most items on Gracie’s menu, are seasonal. To demonstrate some current desserts, Denmark whipped up a Vanilla Pavlova, macerated local strawberries, black pepper wafers, strawberry poppy seed gelato, garden basil and strawberry chamomile consommé, as well as Caramelized Local Apricots made with honey whipped ricotta, tarragon shortbread, sweet corn ice cream and fresh blueberries. They are both the kind of desserts that will make you want to lick the bowl when you get to the bottom, especially for those last few drops of melted ice cream.
As if all this wasn’t tempting enough, in the fall Gracie’s owner Ellen Gracyalny is opening Ellie’s Bakery down the street from the restaurant in the newly renovated Biltmore Garage building. Designed to be more bakery café than dessert shop, Ellie’s Bakery will also be featuring Denmark’s pastry creations as well as the should-be-famous Gracie’s macarons, little bites of confectionary perfection that are made in a hundred different flavors by Danielle Lowe. Across town from Gracie’s in a renovated building at 200 Allens Avenue on the waterfront is Sin, Jennifer Luxmoore’s temple to criminally delicious cakes and desserts. Luxmoore makes some of the most beautiful cakes in town, everything from replicas of the Rhode Island State House to the Millenium Falcon and beyond, but that wouldn’t matter if the cakes didn’t also taste better than anyone else’s. Luxmoore confirms that that was her philosophy, “As much as we make beautiful cakes, we’re all about the taste first. That’s the first thing we always work on, the taste.” Unlike Denmark, Luxmoore didn’t come to baking straight out of school. “This is my second career. I have a love of baking started with grandma next door. I would go over and help her roll out the pie dough and put the little x’s on the peanut butter cookies.” She adds very modestly, “I always had a love of baking and finally decided to go back to it and here I am.” Sin began as a custom cake company doing wedding cakes, birthday cakes, and cakes for all kinds of special events. They make everything from scratch and don’t use pre-made mixes or fillings. What is new this year is their storefront café. Luxmoore explains, “We had so many people coming thinking we were a bakery and looking for something, so when this [space in our building] came available we opened the café up and expanded Continued on p30