7. Desserts are perfect for sharing.
Despite Duchêne’s fine-dining roots, she steers away from overly conceptualized desserts that look ripped from MoMA. “I think dessert people love something that’s just fun and not so pretentious,” she says. “It should be rich, comforting, and easy to share — nothing that takes itself too seriously.”
Although the restaurant will have a pastry chef, Duchêne also has a background in pastry and intends to be very involved creatively with the desserts. At the moment, she’s been tinkering with a rice pudding soufflé with a molten caramel center. There’s also a chocolate tart, of course, although as with most of Duchêne’s cooking, it comes with a clever twist.
“We’re going to do a sweet clover-infused panna cotta as a base of tart shell, then we will add a yogurt ice cream, and we’ll finish with a warm, gooey, chocolate mousse that will completely cover it,” Duchêne enthuses. The dish makes use of chaud-froid, the intense contrast between hot and cold.
“When we think of cooking, we think about texture, we think about flavor, but we rarely think about temperature,” she says. “Having this play of hot and cold when you’re eating it is quite enjoyable. I think that’s why a lot of people enjoy ice cream with a soufflé.”
Like everything coming out of her kitchen, it displays serious technical finesse, yet is easy to appreciate on a purely sensual level. A great deal of thought went into every aspect of the menu here, but at the end of the day, what matters most is that it’s delicious.
Le Chêne is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m. beginning Friday, May 23. Lunch service is forthcoming.
Diana Hubbell is a James Beard Award-winning food and travel journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, Atlas Obscura, VICE, Eater, Condé Nast Traveler, Esquire, WIRED, and Travel + Leisure, among other places. Previously based in Berlin and Bangkok, she currently lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Follow her on Instagram. Follow Resy, too.
Dining and Cooking