The only thing better than dessert is a dessert degustation.
And as long as you’re getting involved in a degustation, it may as well be a five-course
honey dessert degustation masterfully created by Anna Polyviou – the
Shangri-La’s wild child executive pastry chef.
Starting off with glasses of sparkling and some inventive
little canapés in the lobby area, there’s time to form rapport with the other
18 guests you’re about to spend an intimate evening with.
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| Savoury ice cream cones: cream cheese, cherry tomatoes and edible flowers |
We’re taken down to the pastry kitchen itself, where DJ
Brooks is spinning some party tunes on her decks. Yes, decks – in the pastry
kitchen of one of Sydney’s five-star hotels. ‘Has this ever happened before?’ I
ask executive chef Steve Krasicki, who’s joining in as one of the punters
tonight. ‘No. Even having members of the public down here is controversial with
security’, he says.
Controversy is something that Anna – and the Shangri-La – do
well, which might be a surprise given the hotel’s conservative status. Anna’s bleached
mohawk, her frequent and hilarious profanities, Greek accent and references to
her lady love Casey are the perfect juxtaposition to the exquisite concoctions
she creates.
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| 'Breaky' |
The first course ‘Breaky’ is a delicious combination of
yoghurt, milk foam, pannacotta, edible flowers, berries, honey and oats – whose
only flaw is that it is inhaled far too quickly by everyone in the room.
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| 'Fun time, gay time': Anna has as much fun with the names of her dishes as she does creating them |
Next we have ‘Fun time, gay time’, which is a gorgeous
melding of honeycomb ice cream, chocolate, caramel and biscuit pieces.
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| Anna putting the finishing touches on 'Cleanse Me' |
To freshen the palate in between honey courses, we are then
presented with ‘Cleanse Me’: a lovely light dish of pineapple, meringue, fresh
coriander leaves and ginger, with honey almond tuille carefully blowtorched on
top.
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| 'Mum's taking over' |
A dessert degustation with Anna Polyviou wouldn’t be
complete without a bit of theatre and a personal touch, so the DJ switches over the Greek music for the next course, which features haloumi that Anna’s mother has made herself. Anna’s team fry up some
fresh figs in front of us, and then add this to platters with the haloumi and
toasted pita bread, drizzled with honey of course. Unfortunately no one is
leaving any leftovers at a night like this, although eyes are darting every
which way to check for remaining crumbs.
As Anna and her team are assembling the next masterpiece,
Steve tells us about the origin of the honey we’re gorging ourselves on. It
actually comes from a very local source – the Shangri-La itself. The hotel has
five beehives housing a total of around 60,000 bees on one of its balconies.
They hire a beekeeper to come in every few weeks to ‘listen’ to the hives; he
can assess the health of the queen just by doing this. He tells us that bees
only live for around 42 days, and only produce a teaspoon of honey in their
lifetime – which suddenly makes us feel a little more grateful and perhaps a little guilty about the quantity of honey we're consuming.
It’s a recent initiative for the hotel, and one that Steve is clearly
passionate about – he concurs with the growing awareness that bees are a
critical component of the food chain.
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| 'Steven's nuts about honey' |
Although it’s a tough call, I do think Anna saved the best
for last: ‘Steven’s nuts about honey’ is a wickedly delicious serving of hazelnuts,
caramel, vanilla and pear.
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| 'Take home for breakfast' |
To keep the experience going even longer, everyone is given
a take-home box with banana bread, granola and a pot of honey – Anna cheekily
encourages us to Instagram or tweet photos of ourselves eating breakfast naked
the next morning.
So it wasn’t my first Anna Polyviou dessert degustation and
it certainly won’t be my last – there’s a different theme every month…so I just
need to find a special occasion each time so that I always have an excuse to
buy tickets!
