5 Best Apple Desserts In New York City
New York is the second largest producer of apples, after Washington State. Enjoy the best of what our local orchards have to offer by dining on one of our five favorite apple desserts, which showcase fruit, technique, creativity, and, of course, all-around yumminess. By Jessica Allen.
As befits a seasonal Italian restaurant, Locanda Verde serves an apple and concord grape crostata, spotlighting not one but two of fall's best fruits. The crostata as conceived of by pastry chief Kierin Baldwin also includes rosemary hazelnut brittle, cider caramel, and brown butter gelato. The savory portion of the menu is equally amazing, with Frank Bruni calling Chef Andrew Carmellini "one of the most talented Italian chefs in New York" in his two-star New York Times review a few years ago.
Hearth, a warm, romantic, lovely New American restaurant in the East Village, could actually take up two spots on this list, so handy is its kitchen with the apple. The apple cider doughnuts come with an apple compote and whipped cream, an excellent end (or addition) to the seven-course tasting menu, or to an a la carte meal. The apple-ginger crisp, on the other hand, has vanilla gelato and almonds. Since you can't go wrong either way, consider ordering both, in the name of fairness.
The name Ample Hills comes from Walt Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry": "I too lived—Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine." Whitman likely refers to topography, but today the name refers to the beloved creamery's delicious, housemade scoops of ice cream and sorbets. The mulled apple cider sorbet, a seasonal special, features spiced rum, and it's vegan. Other new flavors this fall: "eat, praline, love" (with maple walnut pralines) and "autumn combover" (with molasses comb candy and cinnamon).
If pie-making can be genetic, then sisters Melissa and Emily Elsen definitely got the gene. After a childhood spent on a farm in South Dakota, near where their family owned a restaurant, the sisters landed in Brooklyn and opened Four and Twenty Blackbirds. And, just like their grandmother, who baked for the family restaurant, they make all their pies from scratch each day. There are always lots of terrific slices to try at this bakery, but we can't get enough of the salted caramel apple, especially as the weather gets chillier.
Pastry wizard Dominique Ansel can do pretty much anything with sugar, butter, and the other tools of his trade: mix a croissant and donut, for example, or develop his own Paris-Brest, with a choux dough filled with caramel, chocolate, and peanut butter. His apple tart tatin begins with more than 20 slices of apples, which are then baked with caramel sauce at low temperature. Each slice is served with its own special sable breton crust (kind of like a shortbread). The word "genius" tends to get thrown around pretty easily on the Internet and elsewhere, but in this case it's more than earned.
