La Dolce Vita

The best gluten-free desserts of the year — so far!

Who doesn’t love a sweet treat? I certainly do — though I found, after I was diagnosed with celiac disease, that desserts can be the biggest challenge. I’ve had so many meals at terrific restaurants, only to discover late in the evening that the sole gluten-free dessert offering was a sorbet. While I have nothing against sorbet, I like a dessert to be a lot more interesting. Here are my favorites of the year — so far!

Bistango’s Red Velvet Mousse: Bistango at the Kimberly Hotel is one of my most beloved restaurants in New York, and their desserts have long been part of the reason why. While everything on the menu can be prepared gluten-free, 100% of the dessert menu is gluten-free. (Bistango maintains two kitchens, one entirely GF, so you don’t have to worry about cross contamination, either.) On a recent visit, I tried the new-to-me red velvet mousse, and I fell in love with it. While I’m obsessed with red velvet treats, I find that most of the ones I’ve tried either have too much cocoa or else are too bland. This dreamy, creamy confection hit the spot.

Bunner’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie: Located in Toronto’s Kensington Market, Bunner’s is a 100% dedicated gluten-free and vegan bakery that I am very fond of. While I was in Toronto over Easter, I ordered something I’d never tried before: the strawberry-rhubarb pie, mostly because my mom, who also follows a gluten-free diet, is a hardcore rhubarb fan, and it’s tough to find desserts that feature it in North America. (It’s much easier to find in Ireland and the UK.) I made a slight miscalculation by picking up the pie early in the day on Good Friday, when I was running around town seeing friends and doing errands. The pie was frozen and well-secured in a box, but it felt like I was carrying a heavy barbell everywhere. The payoff was in finding that this is a seriously deep-dish pie, and it gave us about a week of excellent dessert — just as good on the last night as it was on the first!

Mariposa’s California Lemon Cake: I’ve loved this dedicated gluten-free San Francisco bakery for years, and often joke about how I’m running the world’s longest taste test with their Polar Bears and Penguinos (one is vanilla, one is chocolate, both are cream-filled, both are incredible). This spring marked my first-ever trip to Mariposa’s Oakland outpost. Spoiler alert: same 100% dedicated gluten-free goodness, same impeccably high quality. And the California Lemon Cake is my new favorite.

Michael Mina’s Strawberry Soufflé: If you read my reports about Las Vegas — Part 1 and Part 2 — you know that I ate extremely well while I was there. A very special highlight was the last night of the trip, when I ate at Michael Mina’s eponymous restaurant at the Bellagio. It’s not a dedicated GF establishment by any means, but it does take very good care of its celiac guests. Not going to lie, I could not believe that the strawberry soufflé was gluten-free. (I actually checked with not one but two staff members.) The soufflé was served with creme anglaise and a rosé champagne sorbet, and it was absolute perfection.

Modern Bread & Bagel’s Blueberry Hamantashen: This is a sad story, insofar as I went to Modern Bread & Bagel’s location on 14th Street in Manhattan, looking to buy some hamantashen, a triangle-shaped pastry that celebrates the Jewish holiday Purim. Alas, they were sold out of every flavor. However, because the staff is very kind, they let me sample “damaged” blueberry hamantashen that they didn’t consider saleable because the distinctive triangles were broken. It was heavenly! Next spring, I’ll be putting in an order early on.

Now tell me, what have been your favorite desserts so far this year?

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