The lounge menu at Voya looks quite tempting. I mean, it’s all cute tasty things that look beautiful. We had rare tuna with ponzu sauce, on a bed of pickled daikon. The pickled daikon was really nice. The tuna was…acceptable, but not amazing.
What is amazing is that they have a petits fours plate on the lounge menu. Otherwise known as mignardise, they’re typically served after dessert with coffee. Back in my restaurant days, it was my favourite part of the meal because you got to plate so many cute things – and it was fun thinking of new things to put on the plate.
Now, there’s no mention of pastry chef Maurizio Persichino anywhere on the Voya website. It’s a shame because the pastry chef should always get billing wherever the executive and sous chef are, but it’s even more of a shame because he does such beautiful things.
The petits fours selection changes with Chef’s whim, but on this night there were lemon spritz cookies, sparkly coffee cookies, pineapple pate de fruit, cherry cordials, hazelnut praline chocolates, and coffee chocolates.
The lemon spritz cookies are beautiful. They’re little rosettes of moist, lemony goodness. The cookie has an almond base, which adds enough body and richness to the cookie without being overpowering. The best part about this cookie is the texture: the outside is crisp and slightly caramelized, while the inside is moist and slightly chewy. The whole thing is dusted in sugar and garnished with confit orange. So simple, but done so perfectly.
Voya (in the Loden Hotel)
1177 Melville Street
Vancouver, BC
(604) 639-8692
