“It’s just a simple apple. Something that can be found at every grocery store in the fall. It’s familiar and comforting. And they come in a variety of flavors and colors.”
That was the reply of pastry chef Sierra Axtell of The Anchorage after I asked her about the attraction and popularity of apples. In front of me was one of her fall desserts at one of Greenville’s most significant restaurants. Of course this was no simple apple dessert. This one was poached, stuffed with a handmade ricotta and white chocolate filling reminiscent of a cannoli, and garnished with an apple jelly that reminded me of a Jolly Rancher. I would expect nothing less from The Anchorage’s new pastry chef.
The apple’s ancestral home is Kazakhstan. Its capitol, Alma Ata, literally means “full of apples.” This time of the year, our town’s best apples are grown in and around Hendersonville, North Carolina. The mountain air is dry and crisp, which helps keep the pests at bay.
Apples are one of the fruits we can count on year-round. Their portability has turned them into memory makers for kids — and pastry chefs like Axtell.
“My goal is to create a sense of wonderment through desserts, an optical illusion meant to evoke a memory. And any dessert with apples is going to have a sense of familiarity,” she said. “As a child, I lived in Japan, and we always had apples. If we went on a walk to the park or on a hike, I’d always have an apple or two with me, as did my friends. Today I love working with them because any apple dessert will stir different memories in all of us.”
Axtell always has a chocolate-forward dessert, a fruit dessert and something outside of the box. On the night I dined there, we were served an out-of-the-box second dessert of sweet potato dacquoise (a cake made with egg whites and crushed nuts) enrobed in a sweet potato custard, garnished with pecan and caramel croustillant and a pecan caramel. As wonderful as the apple dessert may have been, this one exceeded it. Why? Sweet potatoes, with their gorgeous orange flesh, modest sugar content and exceptional flavor are full of possibilities.
This particular dessert hit all the right notes, and I found it more exciting and more memorable than her Campfire Chocolate Pave, an homage to a campfire s’mores. Why? At restaurants in The Anchorage’s demographic, a diner should expect to find a stunning chocolate dessert. What we do not expect is an extraordinary dessert made from humble sweet potatoes or pedestrian apples. That, however, is the attraction of The Anchorage and pastry chef Sierra Axtell.
The Anchorage, at 586 Perry Ave., serves dinner Tuesday through Saturday.
“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a culinary adviser and broker with National Restaurant Properties. He can be reached at [email protected].
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