Cupcakes, cake pops and other trendy treats come and go on restaurant dessert menus, but pie is a mainstay. As the weather turns cooler, pastry chefs around the country are baking up fall favorites and fresh takes on classics.
Diners are most likely to find apple, Key lime and pecan pies, or tarts, at restaurants. Those varieties are the top pies on menus today, according to Datassential MenuTrends. Of restaurants that serve pies and tarts, 31 percent feature apple, 26 percent Key lime and 19 percent pecan. In addition, Oreo cookie, Boston cream and pumpkin are among quickly growing pie varieties.
“For me, pie, particularly fall and winter pies, is evocative of so many fond memories,” said pastry chef Abigail Quinn. “They're nostalgic and comforting. A bite of a warm apple pie transports me back to being a kid at the Thanksgiving table surrounded by three generations of family.”
This fall at Proof Bakeshop in Atlanta, Quinn and co-pastry chef David Garcia will offer an apple pie made with local apples and topped with a brown sugar oat streusel. Quinn likes to take advantage of the abundance of local apples, and describes the crisp, sweet tartness of the apples combined with a balance of cinnamon, nutmeg and oatmeal crumble topping as “fall magic.”
“Pie is approachable,” Quinn said. “But I think there's an interest in different methods and flavors.”
That’s why Quinn also makes a pecan tart with local toasted pecans and dark chocolate in a brown sugar cayenne crust.
“Cayenne scares a lot of people, but with the pecans, chocolate and brown sugar in the tart, the cayenne is the perfect surprise layer of flavor,” Quinn said.
Also experimenting with different pie flavors is Stacey Needham, pastry chef at Red Star Tavern in Portland, Ore. Now that the season is transitioning to fall and fruit is starting to come off dessert menus, Needham is making her version of an old-fashioned pecan pie, swapping out the usual pecans in favor of local hazelnuts, and serving it with bourbon crème fraîche and vanilla ice cream.
“I decided to use the hazelnuts because of their less sweet flavor and their crunch,” Needham said. “I think the diners like these sorts of pies because they are familiar, with a slight twist.”
Later in the year Needham plans to offer other pies and tarts, including some pumpkin and sweet potato varieties, paired with dark chocolate and toasted marshmallow meringue.
At Benoit, Alain Ducasse’s upscale French bistro in New York City, pastry chef Jean-Loup Teterel will start offering a chestnut tart in October, with shortbread crust, chestnut cremeux, chestnuts, roasted walnuts and praline glaze. Teterel sees chestnuts, which he says are more popular in Europe than in the United States, as a perfect ingredient to bridge the gap between the French palate and American traditions.
Last fall, chef Scott Calhoun of Lo Spiedo in Philadelphia featured an apple pie with cinnamon semifreddo in a cast-iron skillet, as well as a mascarpone tart with huckleberries. To add a little extra crustiness, Calhoun finished the skillet desserts on the restaurant’s custom rotisserie grill. While Calhoun has yet to finalize his fall dessert menu, he says it will definitely feature seasonal pies and tarts again.
Though more often thought of as a summer pie, Key lime pie remains on many menus throughout the year, including The Garden Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York City. Pastry chef Jasmina Bojic’s key lime pie is served with mascarpone vanilla ice cream and local strawberries. First put on the menu last May, the pie continues to be one of the restaurant’s top-selling desserts.