A few months ago, my Korean foodie friend broke the news to me about Chef Holger Deh's departure from his role as the Executive Pastry Chef of Rosewood Hong Kong. At the time, both of us were wondering what his next destination would be and now we knew it's Hong Kong, at least temporarily.
As it turned out, the talented pastry chef from Germany has struck out on his own for a brand new plant-based concept, Essentia by Holger Deh and its first batch of creations was already in full display at its pop-up store in Pacific Place.
Needless to say, I have been waiting for the chance to take a few of these home as my midnight snacks. And I got the perfect chance to do so right after my quick lunch at Restaurant Petrus.
I knew Chef Deh is great with chocolate desserts so that gave me a pretty good idea what to bring home.
Mango and Coconut Creme – I ended up getting this for mom cuz she loves tropical fruits.
But right out of the gate, I knew it was not going to work. On paper, it has the making of a very good dessert with different textures of tropical flavors; mango cream, coconut jelly, vanilla sponge, almond sable, topped nicely with a mango glaze and silver leaf. However, the acidity from the mango was just too overpowering for the coconut flavors to even register.
Rocher – One down, two to go. A meteoroid-shaped chocolate pastry featuring silky chocolate cream, hazelnut praline and almond crumble. On top of the dessert were some gold leaves to make it more premium.
From what I've heard, this is the chef's take on the famous Ferrero Rocher chocolate.
Easily the best of the trio. The runny hazelnut praline meshed wonderfully well with the delicately smooth 70% dark chocolate cream while the crispy crust made with dark chocolate and almond crumble provided some lovely crunch to the mix.
Sakura mille-feuille – The puff pastry I thought was pretty nice but it tasted a bit funny (I found out later that the puff pastry was actually plant-based which explained why). The sakura chantilly cream also tasted funny as well. In fact, Jelloman thought it tasted like her cough medicine but I really didn't think it was that bad.
(Turned out the sakura cream was plant-based too!)
One out of three certainly wasn't what I expected right from the start but like I've said a few times here, plant-based or gluten-free desserts are simply not for everyone. But I for one agree that having natural and healthy desserts is going to be the future.
Food Rating: 5.5/10
Price: $$$
Address: Level 2 Shop 200E, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Admiralty, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Admiralty
Tel: +852 8489-8435
Website: www.essentiabyholgerdeh.com
Opening Hours: 10:30am - 8:30pm daily
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