Del Posto’s BrillIant Brooks Headley

The Core Belief

Brooks Headley is the second best pastry chef I’ve had the pleasure to work with.  (The best being the enigmatic, dryly humorous, brilliantly architectural Richard Leach.)  His unique, vegetable inspired creations have been thrilling diners in Washington DC and New York since he decided to leave his day gig as a punk rock drummer in 1999.

I’m happy to report ever since Del Posto’s four-star review in the New York Times last year, people have been catching on to just how good a cook Headley is.  Brooks is featured in today’s Times for his utterly inspired new dessert: “celery sorbet with a little dressed celery salad goat-cheese-mousse balls coated with olive-oil-sautéed bread crumbs; macerated figs with balsamic vinegar.”

New York Times food writer Mark Bitman calls this creation “…bizarre— but it’s also incredible.”  I call it another mouth-watering dessert from a pastry chef who’s not afraid to think outside of the ‘but it’s a flourless chocolate cake’ box.  (Check out the entire article ‘Yes It’s Made Of Celery’ by clicking here.  After reading the piece I can assure you Bitman’s never had a Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray Soda in his life.)

Between Leach, Brooks and up and coming young stud Ryan Butler of the Lower East Side’s Mary Queen of Scot’s, it good to know the desert course is getting a makeover for a ne generation of diners.