~ Curious Charlie ~

Dessert Evenings by Pierre Roelofs @ Fancy Nance @ Friday, November 13, 2015

Thursday 15th October

In celebration of my last class for my course we went to Pierre Roelofs’ Dessert Evenings at Fancy Nance. Located in South Yarra in the lane before Burch & Purchase this place is only open every fortnight on a Thursday evening.

A clean quirky wonderland feel with pink flamingos, giant toadstools paired with white tablecloths set the scene for tonight's adventure. We're just missing fake green grass.

Flowers are mine, before the event we went to a floral workshop.

Background - "After five years running Dessert Evenings at Fitzroy’s Rosamond, pastry chef Pierre Roelofs has “grown up” and will be taking up residency at Adriano Zumbo’s new venue, Fancy Nance... Running every second Thursday... the menu will feature three courses of dessert as well as one of Roelofs’ famous dessert tubes.

Pierre has worked at Michelin Star-rated restaurants The Vineyard at Stockcross, The Fat Duck and a little place in Spain called El Celler de Can Roca - recently ranked the world's number one." - Broadsheets

No I didn't get a picture of Pierre. :P

Raspberry Cheesecake Tube

Raspberry jelly, baked cheesecake puree, crumbled biscuit (cookie) base

First up was their famous and awesome dessert tube, it's not the B&P variety but a small flat based test tube with the diameter of your middle finger.

The menu changes each fortnight, which is each time they're open (yes only once every two weeks on a Thursday) and tonight it's a raspberry cheesecake tube! Did you know we have cheap raspberries and other berries back home?

Back to the tube. Served chilled you dip it into a beaker with very warm water for 3 seconds and then suck it. It was awesome!

The Bar

Beach Kiosk Crush

Orange creme (custard), orange marshmallow, caramel jelly, vanilla gel, vanilla meringue (???) This is what the menu tells me the dish is. It's quite interesting, what I describe vs what the menu tells us it is.

I thought it was salted caramel meringue and jelly w Vanilla cream, custard drops and coconut marshmallow. Yum! I love coconut and vanilla, while he loves salted c so this dish was perfect! Only wished there was more :P

Italo-Disco in San Francisco - Lemon ricotta, passionfruit ice cream,

toasted coconut crumble, golden syrup foam, puffed millet

Third course ice cream, passionfruit with a ricotta on the bottom and topped with a coconut crumble, within the ice cream there was something that reminded me of cereal, crispy spheres. Smooth, pearls and crumbly cheese. Yum. Though I'm not sure about the cheese, that was a weird combo.

Cold Summers' Day

Tres leches cake (made with 3 milks), blackcurrent parfait,

blackcurrent & coconut gel, banana creme, banana slices, brioche crumbs

The fourth dish was too complex with too many elements for me to describe. It was a cheesecake, not NY style or baked though. Not spongy or doughy, but similiar to something else. There was purply-pink cubes of ice cream, banana creme and slices and dry cake crumbs. It was interesting, but I didn't love it. It would rank 4th with everything else we tried tonight.

No. 1 and 2 was my favourites, the ice cream was very good too but a bit simple for the level that everything else was on.

Mother was my +1 tonight as everyone else was working or at a work thing. Her comments were: music style was not classical - her choice, everything was slow and the water tasted funny, also she wanted everything served one right after the other, and everything was too sweet (she doesn't need to try it to know that life is sweet). She also said they take ages (no it was not ages, normal people talk during dessert, we don't) to serve each dish, so they can charge more for parking...

At the end of evening she rinsed her mouth at the table and gargled the water before spitting it back into the glass. Why? Because she said it tasted like chlorinated tap water. So the next time anyone asks why she's not invited that's why. And the funny thing is she's not a hillbilly (though she sure acts like one), she's a health lecturer back home and here.

This sign is at the end of the lane, go past it down the alley to get to Fancy Nance.

Everything was very good, but worth $65? Hmm... depends on who you ask. If you're a massive fan of fine dining perhaps. For me, it was a very good experience with matching service, but it's a bit much. For dessert I'd prefer to get some slices from Luxbite or tubs from B&P. Alice, my friend who's a chef might have a different option with greater understanding of the skills required to create these dishes.

Every fortnight, Pierre creates a new menu, three courses and a dessert tube. It's a pop-up with Fancy Nance playing host, the 4 course dessert degustation costs $65 and will take you about an hour.

As it is a degustation, eat dinner before you come, but not to a level where you need to be rolled to your next event. XD

Thanks Melbourne To Do for the tickets!