Travel & Food
All Dig In!
Desserts meant for sharing are popping up on menus at trendy downtown Manhattan restaurants.
bjj208@nyu.edu
At a downtown location of Così, a popular salad-and-sandwich restaurant chain, three tables in the back of the dimly lit eatery are converted into makeshift campfires. Diners huddle around the sterno-generated flames roasting marshmallows and dig into one of the most popular items on the menu: S’mores.
“I’m happy to be able to share food at the table and not have it be considered bad manners,” said J.H. Groves, 21, a visitor from Palm Beach, Florida, who was at Così recently with three friends, indulging in the sticky chocolate-graham-cracker concoction. Groves said he grew up in a home where reaching over to someone else’s dish “was not okay. So it’s fun to be able to do it now.”
Restaurant diners have always tended to divvy up desserts, and now, eating establishments in lower Manhattan and elsewhere are taking advantage of this tendency by offering menu items specifically designed for groups of two, four, or even more.
At Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man, a hip, new cafe on lower Broadway, meant-for-sharing desserts include a Warm Double Chocolate Fondue, served with fresh fruit, grilled marshmallows, and banana bread; and a Popsicle Fondue that comes with vanilla ice cream bars, melted chocolate, and bowls of toffee pieces and chocolate-coated crunchies. “Just try it. You’ll like it,” one waitress tells diners with a knowing wink.
Further downtown, the entire menu of The Stanton Social, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, is made up of dishes designed for sharing, with such items as Kobe beef sliders and braised short rib soft tacos. But the eatery has become known for its extravagant multi-portion desserts-particularly the warm donuts served with caramel, raspberry, and chocolate dipping sauce.
“Every table orders them,” said owner and chef Chris Santos.
The S’mores enjoy similar popularity at Così: Waitress Stephanie Meyer estimates she serves them to about 20 groups per night. Diners at one table order them, and then others nearby see the flaming extravaganza, she said. “They get excited [seeing] fire …and say, ‘Ooh, I want that!’”
Some observers speculate that the appeal of shared desserts is, in part, because they facilitate conversation and allow diners to bond. “Restaurants and marketers are finding that this is a way to tap into the … desire of individuals to participate in larger group and community life,” said Denise Copelton, Ph.D., chair of the department of sociology at the State University of New York College at Brockport.
Sharing also may reflect the fact that restaurants are more conscious of customers’ needs to watch their waistlines. “It may be in response to America’s weight consciousness,” Dr. Copelton adds. “If something is meant to be shared, you can still eat dessert and lessen the guilt of it.”
That’s the appeal for John Kultgen, 20, a junior at New York University, who along with his companions dug into a pile of chocolate cake and whipped cream-known as the Chocolate Mess -at Max Brenner’s recently. “It seems like everyone is counting calories,” Kultgen said. Now, “you don’t have to feel bad because you’re eating cake and the person next to you is eating sorbet. Everyone is eating the same thing, so everyone gets to share in the guilt.”
Diners at Così share S'mores, a campfire favorite that's available at the branch of the eatery in downtown Manhattan.
Photo by Catherin (CQ) Yu