Pretty in Pink
Two Niagara chefs turn a celebrated local vintage into an extraordinary dessert By Shaun Smith
Image credit: James Reid
Though it stands to reason that a winery restaurant should showcase local bottlings in its cooking, it’s often a trick to carry fine wine’s taste and character onto the plate. Score one for Frank Dodd and Kathy Duris, the executive chef and pastry chef at Hillebrand Winery Restaurant, who’ve created a soufflé suitable for the gods. Prepared with whipped egg whites and a pastry cream that marries puréed local raspberries with Hillebrand’s rusty-pink cabernet franc icewine, the decadent dessert is baked in individual copper pots until it’s as tall and light as a cumulonimbus and its sugar-dusted top turns a sweet, golden pink. Ripe with the icewine’s subtly tannic tones of dried cherry, kumquat and prune, it rises beautifully to the challenge.
Hillebrand Winery Restaurant, 1249 Niagara Stone Rd., Niagara-on-the-Lake, 905-468-7123.
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