New York’s Best New Desserts Are Hidden in This Fancy Department Store

There’s a new destination for standout desserts in New York City: the anchor restaurant, Maison Passerelle, housed in Printemps, the new French department store that claims its not a department store at 1 Wall Street, at Broadway. It comes by way of Rachel Green, who has made her way over to her first pastry gig after more than a decade-long career as a savory cook — most recently at Cafe Carmellini. As it turns out, her boss, Top Chef’s Gregory Gourdet, has a knack for identifying talent.

Maison Passerelle, which opened mid-April, explores a French colonial legacy by way of the Caribbean and beyond. It’s the last spot to open among a handful of food options connected to the store, including a pastry nook selling Haitian hot chocolate called Café Jalu; the second-floor champagne raw bar, Salon Vert; and the landmarked Art Deco space housing Red Room Bar. A lot is riding on the restaurant, perhaps the most ambitious partnership to date from Kent Hospitality Group, which was renamed from Saga following Jamal James Kent’s death last year.

Though you can enter Maison Passerelle through the store, it’s easier to use the restaurant entrance on Broadway, which takes you to the host stand. The room unfolds from here: a front area with a white tin ceiling and art-worthy overhead lighting, a wood- and copper-accented bar with aquamarine tiles, and blue-checked Pierre Frey-design fabrics. Past the bar, a red jasper marble counter frames the open kitchen. This is the front row of the 85-seat dining room and offers the best seats in the house. It’s here where you’ll find Gourdet at work.

The Queens native with Haitian roots returned to New York to run the restaurant after racking up accolades including a trio of James Beard awards for his cookbook and Portland, Oregon restaurant, Kann, that he continues to oversee even as he opens this project.

At Maison Passerelle, Gourdet has assembled a menu with starters like oysters with a pikliz mignonette, a smoked beet salad with coconut cream, and warm plantain bread. Mains range from a slow-cooked grouper to a cane syrup-glazed duck. There’s also the $150 steak frites, made with 30-day aged NY strip with coffee jus. Sure, there are braised spring greens for sides, but orders of fries with remoulade were flying out of the kitchen on an early visit.

While the savory menu is getting buzz, Green’s desserts deserve your attention.

For dessert, since souffles are so everywhere, Green wanted to take hers to the next level with the coconut chiboust ($21), a free-form version. The white-on-white plate displays a fluffy custard cloud laced with lemongrass and makrut lime, flanked by toasted coconut sorbet. Its soft textures — wobbly, light, cold, and creamy — contrast with bold flavors.

Green says that the chiboust has long been in her repertoire. She learned how to make them — “a bit more stable than a souffle, but that same folding in of meringue” — at the Modern, under the guidance of her mentor, Daniel Skurnick. We’ve seen Skurnick at Le Coucou, where he reintroduced diners to the Baked Alaska. So when Green decided to segue from savory to sweets, she made one when she tried out for the pastry chef position at Printemps. It was a big reason she was hired.

Green describes her style of pastry as dynamic and not overly sweet — thanks to her training as a savory cook. “The more flavor you can pack in, the better,” she says, noting the influence of her mother’s career as a certified herbalist in shaping her palate. All the creations on this menu are gluten- and dairy-free, “because everyone deserves to have a beautiful dessert,” she says.

It took her four times to get the chiboust to where the team wanted it. “I think you can make it more — ” Gourdet said, encouraging her to look at the sugar content and the layering of flavors. Gourdet, she says, “really pushed me with this dessert.”

Before Maison Passerelle, Green also made desserts as an opening sous chef at Cafe Carmellini. There, she created the memorable grapefruit sorbetto and granita. A similar pairing is also on the menu at Printemps’s champagne and oyster cafe Salon Vert, for which she makes lemon-on-lemon with ginger and basil. The one at Maison is the most vibrant, named Rose Kayenn ($14) for the national flower of Haiti and a nod to Gourdet’s background: A hibiscus-guava sorbet pairs with shaved ginger lime ice and mint for a dessert that looks simple and tastes wild because of its bold flavors and hit of acid.

Among other desserts, chocolate lovers can try the Haitian chocolate ganache, which is a little round cake laced with coffee, cinnamon, and star anise, sided with a quenelle of banana sorbet ($19). There’s also a rhubarb parfait and a caramelized pineapple cake ($18).

Of her new position that allows her to create standout desserts like these, Green says, “GG has given me the opportunity to play, which is something I really needed.”

Heather Willensky