[Thank you to my wonderful boyfriend, Parker, for being so dessert- and Dominique Ansel-obsessed and coming across this adventure while virtually eating his way through the DA website.]

Can you keep a secret? I am about to walk you through a wild, sugar-intensified, limited-available experience that takes place where all the pastry magic happens. It is within the home of the masterminds behind the Cronut, the DKA, and dozens of other fabulously created desserts and pastries (like a giant s’mores!). It’s basically like winning the golden ticket in Willy Wonka. Dominique Ansel Kitchen, located in Chelsea, NYC, has been opened less than a year and offers a special, new and unique experience that only 48 people a weekend get to take part in.

Welcome to U.P.! The world of “unlimited possibilities” of desserts created by Dominique Ansel and his two head pastry chefs, Karys Logue (Executive Pastry Chef) and Noah Carroll (Corporate Pastry Chef).

If you’re ready...come along...but shhhh…

This intimate eight-course dessert-only evening starts with a journey up to the second floor of the Kitchen where the prep kitchen is located. This giant (NYC real estate speaking “giant”), window-filled prep kitchen is filled with city lights from the outside sparkling off the giant (now really literally speaking “giant”) kitchen prep machinery. Think, huge mixers, huge refrigerators and freezers, huge pasta makers. It’s a mystical land of any wannabe, Top-Chef-Cooking-Channel-Food-Network-obsessed, at-home chef. While taking in every element of the kitchen and just knowing you are standing within the Dominique Ansel kitchen, a table suddenly starts to lower down from the ceiling. Really though, HOW COOL?! (This table mechanism was probably as cool as the whole dessert tasting itself!)

The menu, cleverly titled “First Memories Last Forever”, is made up of “first” memories or experiences almost every person has. As the D.A. team is explaining this and calling out our names assigning us each a specific seat, a bamboo mat with micro veggies gets laid out in front of us because “your parents always said to eat your veggies first and then you get dessert!”...and why not?

The chefs emailed a couple weeks prior to the tasting asking what our first words were, with no explanation for why they needed this. As the good guests we are, Parker and I obeyed and called our parents. My call back from my mom went something like this:

Me: “Hi mom”
Mom: (in a weirdly high, baby voice) “MAMA. MAMA. MAMA.” (then back to her normal voice) “obviously.”

This all started to make sense when we got to starting dessert things off. The chefs set a soup-sized bowl of what looked like green pea soup in front of each person. In each bowl were cut out letters with each person’s “First Word”...made of homemade meringue marshmallows!..topping a bowl of sweet peas and rice milk “baby food” with carrot cake croutons (insert deep, heavy sigh here while reminiscing of this). And now our assigned seats made sense. The girl next to me had marshmallow blocks spelling out “SEXY.” Apparently she misunderstood your actual first word as a human for first word in your relationship.

Dessert: sweet pea, rice milk, carrot cake, meringue, yogurt, gin
Drink pairing: yuzu sparkler

Next UP (pun intended), we sped through childhood and were already on our “First Kiss.” The guys at the table received this ceramic egg cup that was smooth, while the girls received a ceramic egg cup that was bumpy. Think...the type of person you had your first kiss with (girls = smooth faces; guys = rough, stubbly faces). Inside the egg was a drink of peanut water with little cream-soda flavored pearls and some mint (for the bad breath). The real kicker is that at the bottom...this first kiss is finished off by a small mound of panna cotta, resembling a yolk for the egg. As you drank this “yolk” it was slippery and weird (but delicious), to mock the end of your first kiss with a little tongue action. As Dominique Ansel would explain “every kiss should be a little French.”

Dessert: raspberry, fresh mint, vanilla cream
Drink pairing: butter popcorn rum & cola (to remember the movie theater where you may have had your first kiss)

Next UP, we slightly grew up and went to college where we experienced our “First Time Living On Your Own.” This may have been one of my favorites of the night, not only for the dish itself but also for the reasoning. As the chefs explained, they came up with this because one of D.A.’s meals he would cook for himself when he first lived on his own was pasta carbonara. This dessert geniously mocks this, as it is served in a mini cast iron skillet with “noodles” made of crepes mixed with a sweet corn puree topped with crunchy “panchetta” made of smoked toffee and a lemon “egg yolk”

Dessert: sweet corn, crepes, smoked toffee, lemon, brown sugar, black pepper
Drink pairing: kumquat Sauternes sangria

UP fourth tragically comes a feiry “First Heartbreak.” As the chefs are getting together the next dish, matchboxes with different sayings are set in front of us. As we go down the table reading the boxes, a large dish with a marshmallow and chocolate made-daisy is set in front of us. Now it’s time for a fun play on “he loves me, he loves me not” daisy pulling. We are each instructed to light the “I love you…” paper on our plate. As the fire starts to melt each daisy petal one by one, we are told to either watch our heartbreak slowly play out in front of us or just start digging into the middle, a chocolate twist on baked alaska. Truly a dish to eat your heartbreak out to. Chef D.A. and his team said after asking people “what first heartbreak is like” the main response was ranged from “eating ice cream and being sad” to “being angry and drinking.” They further explained how this dish “starts out beautifully, like love, then ends up broken.”

Dessert: bergamot, cocoa nibs, marshmallows, bitter almond
Drink pairing: ceylon pekoe Mezcal milk punch (here is your going out and drinking step after indulging in ice cream)

A surprisingly and cleverly-timed palate cleanser of shiso-lime sorbet was served...out of a fresh orchid flower...with no utensils. Meaning use your tongue to eat the sorbet out of the flower. I guess after a heartbreak you always need that bounce-back hookup... As the chefs said, “Use your imagination and enjoy it!” (Rating: Mature minds only)

UP next, after you get over your heartbreak, you become an adult and get your “First Job!” A four-column bar graph symbolizing different adult-related topics is hidden within a “memo” from your boss. Each column has it’s own cake dessert buried inside it.

Dessert: coffee (BECAUSE YOU NEED IT TO SURVIVE WORK), cardamom, nougat, malt
Drink pairing: chocolate stout shot in the dark (think going out for happy hour with your coworkers)

At this point I turned to Parker and said I needed a loaf of bread. Sugar shakes were starting to take over me.

UP next after you have your first paycheck from your first job, is your “First Fine Dining Experience.” D.A. said for his first true fine dining experience after his job, he splurged on a beef wellington. Thus comes along our fancy “beef wellington”--a sweet treat of dark chocolate set in a pastry on top of a (water) bed of red wine currant sauce. Quite easily one of the most delicious sauces I have ever had. Seriously. I want to swim and lounge in a pool of that sauce. I could not stop raving to the chefs about the sauce and Chef Noah boasted on how long it took for them to perfect that one. I practically picked up the plate and licked it clean. (You’d hope I was joking.)

Dessert: dark chocolate, black currant, red wine, brown butter, puff pastry
Drink pairing: Port wine (because every fancy meal has fine wine, and now that you have a solid paycheck you can afford more than a box of wine.)

Since you’re an adult now, you’ll probably attend some events. Next UP was “First Dance.” I don’t know what was more fun during this one--watching the chefs make the desserts or actually eating the dessert. The D.A. team put together a mesmerizing dance on a stick, with dipping little strawberry lollipops in a magical bowl of liquid nitrogen and hand-piping mascarpone tutus. Now all that is playing in my head is Munchkins singing “we represent the lollipop guild…”

Dessert: frais de bois strawberries, mascarpone, yuzu
Drink pairing: champagne (because every event and dance should have champagne)

We have finally arrived to our last dessert tasting of the evening... If you think about it, it’s hard to end a night of firsts, because firsts are continuously happening in everyone’s lives. Even the chefs agreed. They admitted they had a difficult time figuring out an end dessert and if there really is a last “first,” so they came up with “The Next First.” It was something different (of course) and light to end on: a lychee-sake shaved ice treat with a cherry on top. “Just don’t eat the plate,” the chefs said in 100% seriousness, because apparently people have tried.

Dessert: single cherry, sake lees, lychee
Drink pairing: Kirsch mist and sake

I love it. A perfect way to end the night--with a cherry on top. Except for one thing that can top that. Some D.A. coffee and tea and a piece of D.K.A. Seriously--these DKAs give their Cronuts a run for their money.

This entire night and menu was so intelligently created and perfect. From being led up the candle-lit stairway to the lowering of the table to the order of desserts to the explanations for why each dessert was chosen and why those specific flavors were chosen. This is truly an experience only one can dream of having. You even get a balloon and homemade D.A. potato chips to end on!

D.A. Potato Chips

D.A. Menu

NOTE: This happened in November. No surprise here, I’m late with posting this. Dominique Ansel now has a new U.P. menu out and started said menu at the beginning of this month (March)! Parker and I are actually going to this tasting again this coming weekend. Check back soon for an update (I promise sooner than 4 months after the event) with their new dessert experience!