Insta cuisine is eccentric at best and downright ridiculous at its worst. The ‘Everything is Cake’ trend is a beguiling social media trick of fantasy and reality: imagine you’re looking at a flower pot packed with mud and blooms in the middle. A hand with a knife appears. Flower pot murder isn’t even Agatha Christie’s domain. It is epicurean legerdemain: the knife plunges into its clay victim which isn’t clay, mind you. It is chocolate. And the metaphorical blood is coffee mousse, coffee ganache, espresso chocolate cake, buttercream and vanilla ice-cream.
This dessert is the pride of 1906, a fine dining restaurant in the sprawling Longwood Gardens, Brandywine Creek Valley just outside of Philadelphia. The main course has roasted beets, braised savoy cabbage and a juicy crab omelette. Philly, best known for its cheesesteak—a power-packed sandwich of beef, provolone and onions—usually is not a star in the gourmet galaxy of the East Coast, especially with New York as a close neighbour. But if you go beyond this epic sandwich, many surprises are guaranteed.
Shock and Awe: Take Vedge, for instance. The restaurant highlights local vegetables. Rutabaga (a root vegetable) becomes a fondue served with pretzels; chioggia (a garden beet) is salt-roasted and served with an arepa pancake and a smidge of black garlic; the cauliflower gets a ‘Chicken 65’ upgrade with a tangy spicy sauce; carrot is cooked rillette style (similar to a confit) and placed on pumpernickel toast; and rhubarb becomes a cheesecake with a sweet pea ice-cream.
Elsewhere, the Garden Restaurant at the Barnes, which looks out onto its blooming namesake, serves a comforting seasonal sweet corn and pumpkin squash soup; roast chicken paired with spring vegetables, herbs and horseradish beurré blanc; and a grilled salmon with puy lentils and sweet pea.
