The third edition of ‘Cold War’, Bengaluru’s grandest dessert fiesta, was held recently at Shangri-La Hotel.
The event organised by The Chef Post saw over 100 talented pastry chefs from 22 uber-luxury hotels and free-standing restaurants in the city, come together with desserts that are progressive, innovative and futuristic.
Sneha Chandrashekar, founder of The Chef Post, said, “This event is unique because this isn’t a competition. Everyone’s a winner. Every pastry chef from the industry is welcome to come and showcase their art.” She was also a member of the six-member jury.
The event began with a speech by Sneha and what continued after was a ramp walk by the chefs of various hotels and restaurants with their respective desserts.
The walk was quite a performance. In fact, many chefs turned out to be quite the actors and dancers. At the end of the ramp was the jury’s table where they presented their desserts. The jury tasted and critique them accordingly. In terms of presentation, ‘A Can’ by the Leela Palace Hotel was one of the most visually appealing desserts. It looked exactly like a Fanta can and tasted like it too. The dessert had a tangy-sweet taste and a very strong flavour of orange.
“The idea behind this dish was that generally, Fanta tastes great but has lots of preservatives and chemicals. We wanted to recreate the taste in a healthier fashion,” said the chef in-charge.
The idea behind The Lalit Ashok’s dessert, ‘Agomoni’, was interesting. The sweet dessert was shaped like a coconut with a dark chocolate shell. The white of the coconut was portrayed by white chocolate mousse and a champagne and caviar centre. It was completed by a coffee sponge and crunchy coconut and sugar mud.
Ashish, pastry chef at The Lalit Ashok said, “We wanted to bring about a feeling of nostalgia through our dessert. ‘Agomoni’ in Bengali means ‘to welcome’ and we wanted to show our group’s rich hospitality through this dessert.”
Shangri-La’s dessert was a sight to behold as well. The chocolate card and the coffee mud pot was delightful. The pot was edible and made of dark chocolate that added to the experience.
Hotel Sheraton Grand’s set of vegan desserts infused Indian desserts with western ingredients. “Everyone is health-conscious nowadays. Many used to come up to me and ask if we offered healthy desserts. So I thought that a vegan healthy dessert is very futuristic,” said Vikram Singh, pastry sous-chef, Sheraton Grand, Bengaluru.
Talking about his favourite dessert at the event, Saharsh Vadhera, director of sales and marketing, Shangri-La, said, “We saw a lot of sustainable desserts today and everyone put their best foot forward. My favourite is definitely the hotel that I represent. Beyond this, an excellent job done by The Marriot, Whitefield and The Lalit Ashok.”