Bedford Lodge Hotel uses Cockney slang and braille in new dessert menu

Bedford Lodge Hotel and Spa has launched its new á la carte dessert menu, which “turns retro classic desserts into modern masterpieces.”

The new menu uses innovative cooking methods to “inject humour and intrigue” into the dishes offered. Head pastry chef, Lee O’Neill, has incorporated cockney rhyming slang and his study of braille onto the plate.

The new menu features six desserts:

1. Blackberry Braille – a blackberry bavarois with cassis jelly on a fennel & ginger base, a lime and violet macaron, fresh blackberries, blackberry & liquorish sorbet, with Black Jack sweet flavoured braille that reads ‘Spring’
2. Apple and Pears’ with ‘Rosie Lee’ gel – a vanilla parfait filled with Calvados caramel formed as an apple and robed in an apple gel to finish, served alongside a thyme poached pear filled with honey cremeux, a ginger staircase and a tea gel.
3. The Newmarket Gin Fondant – this dessert takes the botanical essences from The Newmarket Gin and turns it into a dessert of juniper infused chocolate fondant, white chocolate soil, Seville orange & horseradish sorbet, Devils Dyke orchid gel with the “Newmarket Stripe” racing colours in coulis.
4. Yuzu tart – an Asian-inspired take on the classic lemon meringue pie, using the sharp citrus Japanese yuzu fruit on a sweet pastry base, served with Italian meringue, blueberry and Thai basil gel with blueberry & ginger sorbet.
5. Terra “Cotta Pot” – bringing the outdoors inside with a carrot, ginger & cumin infused panna cotta plant pot, strawberry ‘mushrooms’, chocolate & honeycomb soil with popping candy and cola jelly, and a chocolate mousse and meringue snail.
6. Retro-Roll – a pistachio & cherry arctic roll which sits alongside pistachio and almond nougat, peach purée crisps and jelly, as well as white chocolate crumb.

O’Neill said: “Coming up with a new menu is probably any chef’s favourite part of what they do – it is when you have complete freedom to try, test and taste new flavour combinations and cooking techniques.

“Throughout the process of creating this menu I wanted to take classic dishes and give them a new lease of life.”

He added: “Being able to use things I have learnt outside of the kitchen, like braille, and include them in my dishes has been really rewarding – now I just hope the customers like the desserts as much as we do here at the hotel.”