NoMad Hotel, London - Strawberry x 3 Ways
Nick Henn is Head Pastry Chef at the new NoMad Hotel in London. Together with his two Sous Chefs, Margherita and Martha, the pastry team have created this faultless dessert for their new menu.
Nick Henn, Margherita and Martha
Strawberry with Vanilla Cake, Cream Cheese and Lemon Verbena Sorbet
“Our inspiration for the strawberry dish came from a mixture of the English tradition of Strawberries & Cream married with our NYC roots of a Strawberry Cheesecake. We wanted to lighten the dish as much as possible, so introduced the citrus from the Lemon Verbena sorbet which cuts through the fat from the cheese and the madeleine sponge. The Strawberry sorbet is also high in acidity to ensure the sugar levels remain balanced.
We prepare the strawberries in three ways. Firstly, poached in a strawberry consommé which we season with citric acid and sugar syrup. We also make a roasted strawberry puree by cooking Mara de Bois Strawberries in the oven for around 4 hours, before blending with lemon juice and salt. The final element is just a raw slice of Gariguette which we brush with a strawberry and balsamic vinegar, just to macerate and soften the fruit slightly.
We have a mixture of desserts on our menus here at NoMad, with the multiple dining spaces and services (Side Hustle - Mexican, Atrium, Breakfast Service, Events). We have a really great spectrum to work from. Our inspiration mainly comes from nostalgic dishes reinvented. But - most importantly - also delicious food we all want to eat.
Recently we have developed a Rum Baba with tropical fruit and we are working now on a banana and puff pastry dessert, as well as a selection of Mexican inspired chocolate bon bons for Side Hustle.
Being able to create recipes and dishes together as a team makes everything so much easier: to be able to bounce ideas off each other and take inspiration from all three of our experiences definitely enables us to create desserts that we can all be proud of.
July is such a versatile month. We are working on a deep-dish Peach Cobbler for brunch with Le Marche's amazing stone fruit selection, as well as a Raspberry and Yoghurt dessert with their amazing Tulameen. It really does help to have Ben and Marcus on the end of the phone with their years of experience and knowledge!
I would say that definitely my two biggest influences in food are Mark Welker (Former Executive Pastry Chef of Make It Nice) and OfCourse Benoit Blin (Le Manoir). Benoit was my first boss straight out of college at 17 and he definitely taught me the basics and ground rules, Le Manoir is an amazing place and I owe so much to him.
I worked for Mark for almost two years at Davies and Brook. Having spent a lot of time with him in New York he is the most talented and creative person I have ever met. The way he designed and ran our pastry programmes with such seemingly ease was inspiring and his visionary approach to the pastry section as a whole was amazing to have the opportunity to be a part of.”