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Foie gras and pâté for dessert? It’s not uncommon to see these delicacies pop up on tasting menus and beyond as a savory-meets-sweet joyful ending to an eventful meal. At Chicago’s Temporis, chef Sam Plotnick’s foie gras ice cream combined with a canelé, black sesame, Sauternes, and passion fruit proves to be a winning combo. There’s something to be said about pairing perfectly textured, salty meat dishes with all things sweet.
Taking it a step further, chefs are pushing the boundaries of sweet and salty in a whole new way—in the form of candy bars. And it makes perfect sense. When fused with chocolate, caramel, and other sinful confections, you’re looking at one of the most alluring bites your palate will ever encounter. Imagine a crunchy, chewy Take 5 candy bar with foie gras in the center. Yes, thankfully, this does exist. And it’s everything you’d expect.
Here, where to nosh on these playful creations right now.
RoisterIn Chicago, Roister’s chef, Andrew Brochu, takes inspiration from a Take 5— a milk chocolate candy bar chock-full of pretzels, caramel, peanuts, and peanut butter—for his much-hyped-about foie gras candy bar. “I adjusted the recipe to make it taste great with an addition of foie,” he says.
Geraldine’s at Kimpton Hotel Van ZandtChef Stephen Bonin of hip Austin, Texas, eatery Geraldine’s added a Pig Face Candy Bar to his menu, mainly “because it’s fun,” he jokingly tells us. The meat candy trend is a way for chefs to get creative, while at the same time “making the taste buds dance.” Cheekily named, the starter is composed of a country-style pâté (made of pig heads) brûléed with raw sugar, served alongside house-made cheese crackers, chow-chow, and Dijon mustard. “We are at full production speed to keep up with the demand,” Bonin says of the confection, which was partly inspired by his grandmother’s cooking. Glimpse around the restaurant on any given day and you’ll find at least one, if not two, orders of the sweet, spicy starter on each table.
McCrady’sThe Whatchamacallit, a popular candy bar born in the late 1970s, makes a modern comeback at McCrady’s (not to be confused with the tavern) in Charleston, South Carolina—a no-brainer when visiting the Holy City. “Sean [Brock] loves both the Whatchamacallit candy bar and foie, and we wanted to find a way put them together,” notes pastry chef Katy Keefe of the aptly named Foiechamacallit creation. “The salty, rich cured foie works really well enrobed in peanut chocolate with a base of puffed Carolina Gold Rice and caramel.” Book in advance to get into Brock’s intimate, 18-seat, tasting menu–only venture, where unexpected is the name of the game.
Sage at Aria Resort and Casino Las Vegas“Currently, the lines of savory and pastry are becoming more blurred,” Sage executive chef Chris Heisinger tells us. The restaurant’s candy bar interpretation features foie gras emulsified into salt-and-pepper peanut butter cream, dipped into single-origin milk chocolate, and served with bourbon caramel and malted Chantilly cream. “The foie gras candy bar was a way to take a luxury ingredient and make it relatable by integrating it into a common and recognizable form,” Heisinger notes.
Atrio at Conrad MiamiAt Atrio, chef Virgile Brandel fabricated a Foie Gras Morello Cherry Bar with edible gold leaves as an amuse-bouche for elaborate dinner events at the 25th-floor hot spot. Foie gras naturally “pairs well with sweet ingredients,” Brandel explains. Kind of like mixing cult-favorite chicken and waffles with syrup, but in a more sumptuous presentation. “Our guests are growing a more adventurous palate and now expect a creative twist on dishes,” he says of the social media–worthy bite.
Xocolatl de David“I came back from a trip to Spain, and a tiny bit of France, determined to create something with foie gras,” David Briggs, owner of Portland, Oregon’s Xocolatl de David, tells us. “I created Foietella, which is a foie gras and chocolate spread that I packed into terrine jars—the same ones I saw at butcher counters [overseas].” While a huge success, its shelf life wasn’t very long, prompting Briggs to revamp his idea into the now-popular Foie Gras Chocolate Bar, which came to fruition with a genius idea to render and clarify foie gras fat for use in the chocolate. “There are just certain tastes and flavors that you cannot get anywhere else,” he explains.
Herons at the Umstead HotelA visit to Herons, a Forbes Five Star restaurant inside the Umstead Hotel in Cary, North Carolina, is like stepping into a culinary version of Alice in Wonderland. Executive chef Steven Devereaux Greene meticulously crafts and executes each meal with pure passion. “I wanted to have a dish that mimicked edible stones,” he notes of a standout amuse-bouche made of foie gras mousse dipped in vegetable ash and coconut oil, served over a bed of faux soil with a “dewdrop of Riesling” set with kappa (seaweed extract). At first glimpse, it resembles a glossy, truffle-like object of desire. “It has been a long-going tradition to pair foie gras with sweet fruits,” he says of the trend. “I just think people are starting to try new things and it is hard to deny the flavor.”
Zero Restaurant + Bar at Zero GeorgeZero Restaurant + Bar’s executive chef, Vinson Petrillo, was so moved after a recent dinner with Steven Devereaux Greene, where he experienced his exquisite “foie gras coals” firsthand, that he decided to create a similar offering with a Klondike Bar–inspired shell for his Charleston restaurant-goers. “I cure the foie gras for three days to give it a nice flavor,” he notes of the bonbon-like bites.