Twelve desserts does not immediately sound like a good idea. Especially not if you are not a dessert lover like me.
The problem is not the dessert it self. The problem is eating twelve of them in a row. Imagine twelve straight sweet dishes. I can only imagine that it would put me into insulin chock and not being able to sleep for days from the sugarbush.
That is exactly what makes Coda interesting. How do you make a complete tasting menu consisting only of desserts interesting?
Coda is Italian for the final part of a symphony, much like dessert is usually the final part of a meal. At Coda however dessert is not the ending. Dessert is the entire menu. But René Frank is not interested in creating twelve classic desserts. Instead he has spent years creating a language where pastry techniques meet ingredients and ideas more commonly found in the savory kitchen.
You will not find refined sugar or stabilizers here. René wants to cook with fresh ingredients and many of the techniques are borrowed directly from the savory kitchen. The question then becomes whether that approach is enough to keep twelve desserts interesting.
The answer starts arriving almost immediately.
The menu opens with a gummy bear, although calling it a gummy bear almost feels misleading. Yellow beetroot had been cooked in its own juice, dehydrated, then combined with white wine vinegar and liquorice. It had the texture of a luxurious gummy bear but none of the flavors you would normally associate with one. It was almost a statement of intent. Forget what you think dessert should taste like and how it should be created.
The same could be said for a biscuit where bone marrow had been added to increase umami or a small donut where caramel had been created from roasted turnip. None of these dishes felt strange simply for the sake of being strange. They felt like familiar and even more familiar they were delicious. Proof that the two worlds could unite on a plate and create harmony.
And this is where the menu starts answering the question.
Because René does not really ask you to eat twelve desserts. He asks you to move back and forth between sweet and savory territory.
One dish looked almost like a fresh acidic salad but instead turned out to be dessert. Mascarpone, thyme and plenty of acidic grapes created something refreshing rather than sweet. Then the menu would move towards a more classic direction with plum, miso and walnuts in a dish that to me was all about crunchy textures.
Just as you start settling into one direction the menu changes again.
Lettuce soaked in maple syrup for 36 hours before being dried and topped with dried lacto-fermented cucumber and seaweed is certainly not a classic dessert combination. And it is appreciated.. Instead the menu constantly creates small changes in rhythm. This was probably one of the most savory dishes of the evening and one of the most inventive as well.
A personal highlight was probably also one of the simplest dishes of the night. A crispy waffle filled with raclette cheese. Comfort food at its core. Grilled cheese is almost always delicious and kimchi powder added a nice contrast. In a menu filled with technical and complex dishes this one felt straightforward and honest.
The same can actually be said about the iconic caviar popsicle. It may once have felt more revolutionary than it does today as caviar increasingly appears in sweeter contexts, but that does not really matter. It remains delicious and removing iconic dishes is almost always impossible. At least unless you have a worthy replacement.
I also have a weakness for apple desserts and the next dish certainly did not disappoint. Barbecued apple with saffron jam, shallot ice cream and roasted chicken skin almost felt like something that could have appeared on the savory menu of a traditional restaurant. The following cheese dish with dried pear and avocado moved even further in that direction and was probably the most savory expression of the evening.
Only then did the menu slowly begin returning towards more traditional dessert territory.
You cannot be a dessert restaurant without making your own chocolate and it naturally became the centerpiece of one of the final dishes. Purple carrot had been transformed into a sorbet, drawing out its natural sugars and creating both beautiful colour and flavor.
Until then it had actually been difficult to place a clear identity or geographical inspiration on the menu outside of some dishes with obvious Central European influences. But the final dessert suddenly shifted direction with inspiration from Southeast Asia through tofu and kaffir lime while beetroot brought things back towards Europe. More acidity also returned here and it felt like a very fitting ending.
Coda is unlike any restaurant I know.
Not simply because it only serves desserts. That alone would probably become a gimmick if the food itself was not interesting. The impressive part is that René somehow manages to make twelve desserts not feel like twelve desserts at all.
Instead it feels like moving through different flavors, textures and ideas where sweet and savory constantly trade places.
So yes, twelve desserts can be interesting and no they are not classic sweet desserts
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