"I've never seen anything like it," says an awed tourist, eyeballing the 14-foot cascade of chocolate at the new Jean-Philippe Patisserie in Bellagio's recently opened Spa Tower. Indeed, neither has anyone else.
Picture three types of confectionary-grade chocolate—white, milk and dark—pumping through 500 feet of pipes, cascading into 25 hand-crafted glass vessels. In actuality, the chocolate travels 27 feet in its liquid state, maintained at 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
Who is Jean-Philippe Maury and why would anyone give him a venue like this? He is Bellagio's resident pastry, chocolate and candy genius, winner of the World Pastry Championship, and recipient of the title Meilleur Ouvrier De France, an award for being the best in France in a special craft.
It's easy to understand why he won these awards. Just take a gander at the Easter eggs and bunnies he has on display this month, or any of his heartbreakingly beautiful pastries, each one a work of art, sitting in rows in the pastry shop's glass case.
But this is far more than just a confectionary, it is also a restaurant, in spite of the fact that seating in here is at a premium with around 20 high stools at granite- topped deco tables. The menu features myriad breakfast pastries, crêpes (sweet and savory), salads and panini to go with the innumerable sweets.
My favorite meal is breakfast. That's when the patisserie serves items such as sticky buns topped with pecans, fat blueberry muffins, buttery croissants and spectacular crêpes. But as delicious as the crêpes are, it's obvious they need to be turned out more quickly. They are made to order, and not nearly with enough speed or efficiency, though the final product is wonderful.
One of the more irresistible of the savory crêpes is Forest, a toothsome combination of ham, mushrooms, eggs and cheese in a buckwheat flour crêpe. Royal, perhaps too rich for breakfast, combines sautéed mushrooms, grilled chicken, bacon and cheddar.
Sweet crêpes taste like what you'd get at a crêpe stand in Paris or Brittany. One comes smeared with the chocolate-hazelnut spread called Nutella, Europe's own version of peanut butter. Exotic has caramelized pineapple, mango passion jam and coconut sorbet. My personal choice of crêpes here is in the sugar category: simple, dusted with vanilla or cinnamon, or brushed with thick, sweet lemon curd.
Croissants and Danishes are known as Viennoiserie in France, in homage to Vienna, where it is said that this style of pastry originated. Try the Nutella briôche: fluffy, eggy sweet bread, or the ham-and-cheese croissant, served warm. Naturally, there is a variety of good coffee drinks to accompany them, and a yogurt parfait laced with fresh fruit, plus several of Jean-Philppe's own teas, on sale in tins.
At lunch, there is a number of salads, cold sandwiches and hot panini, toasted on crunchy bread. The best cold sandwich is roast beef on ciabattina, or Italian slipper bread. The sandwich is loaded with rare roast beef piled high, horseradish-laced sour cream, watercress, tomato, red onion and whole-grain mustard.
My choice for best panini goes to basil-aioli chicken: French bread smeared with basil-garlic mayo and stuffed with grilled chicken, mushroom, tomato, caramelized onion and Fontina cheese, resulting in an unreasonably rich but hard-to- resist creation.
Salads include a Caesar and chicken Caesar, both enlivened by the inclusion of sun-dried tomatoes; a workmanlike Cobb; and a nice crab salad with papaya and mango to offset the saltiness of the crab meat. If you're planning on a sandwich or panini, come after 11 a.m.
Maury's pastries are without question the most beautiful in the city. Intense is without peer, a dome of dark glazed chocolate mousse and chocolate cremeux (chocolate mixed with cream), sitting atop a chocolate macaroon. Exotic uses candied pineapple, kalamantsi (a citrus popular in the Philippines that tastes like spicy, sweet lime), coulis, a lime dacquoise (meringue) and a crispy coconut shell. There are more than two dozen different pastries in all, at a steep $5.50 per. Art for art's sake, this ain't.
On the way out, grab some candy or have a gelato for the road. In addition to the seasonal chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs, there are year-round treats such as Mendiants, fruit- and nut-topped chocolate medallions; boxed assortments ranging in price from around $25 to $75; and World Championship Cookies, chocolate enrobed things that may be the best cookies anywhere.
Life is sweet if you're anywhere near Bellagio.