The majoon toffee cake at Rumi’s Kitchen in Century City arrives topped with a candied orange slice and a pile of salty-sweet date-candied walnuts.
(Calvin B. Alagot / Los Angeles Times)
Sticky toffee pudding is L.A.’s latest dessert obsession. Here are 11 favorites
- Share via
There is arguably no better way to end a meal than with a sticky toffee pudding. The soft and tender sponge cake, made from a batter with softened dates, arrives hot and drowned in a rich, glossy toffee sauce. It is often crowned with a scoop of ice cream for a glorious interplay of temperatures. It’s not difficult to see why it’s one of Britain’s favorite desserts. And luckily for Angelenos, you can now find great sticky toffee pudding on the menu at several restaurants across the city.
The rise of sticky toffee pudding makes a lot of sense. There is a growing interest in British cooking in Los Angeles recently — particularly among restaurants that reinterpret dishes through a Californian lens, such as Tomat and Wilde’s. The dessert’s enthusiastic use of dates also makes it a very Southern Californian dessert, given the abundance of date trees that grow in the region.
Chef Brian Bornemann, who added sticky toffee pudding to the dessert menu at his new pasta-focused restaurant Bar Fortuna in Santa Monica, says the dessert’s recent surge in popularity is also likely due to the fact that it is not overly complicated to make. “In a world where most restaurants in Los Angeles cannot afford pastry chefs anymore, this is a dessert that is easy to execute with a small margin of error.”
Across Los Angeles, restaurants of all kinds are putting their own spin on the dessert. A Persian restaurant in Century City adds candied orange and walnuts, while a West African-inspired spot in Inglewood makes a version with both dates and plantains. Some chefs are using unexpected ingredients like fish sauce or aged vanilla jaggery powder, while others are serving more traditional takes. There has never been a better time to be a sticky toffee pudding-lover in Los Angeles. Here are 11 versions worth ending your meal with:
Showing Place Places
Bar Fortuna
Santa Monica Italian Cocktails $$
(Lindsay Petersen )
Crudo e Nudo chef Brian Bornemman is making a decidedly Italian riff on the classic British dessert at his cozy new pasta spot Bar Fortuna. He wanted to put a tiramisu on the menu but didn’t want to import ladyfingers (he is trying to use local products only), nor did it make sense to make the ladyfingers in-house from a logistical standpoint. Instead, Bornemman kept the flavor profile of the iconic Italian dessert — espresso, mascarpone and cocoa — but transformed it into a playful sticky toffee pudding. The base cake is made from dates, whiskey and espresso. It’s then doused with an espresso-spiked caramel, cocoa powder and a little swoop of mascarpone for good measure. In execution, it blends the best parts of both desserts into one.
Member Exclusive
Plan Your L.A. Day
Log in or register for a free account to save L.A. Times recommendations for restaurants, hikes, entertainment and more — all in one place.
Dunsmoor
Glassell Park American $$$
(Antonio Diaz)
One of the restaurant’s most beloved desserts, the sticky date pudding gets a sprinkle of crunchy Demerara sugar and is toasted in the restaurant’s wood-fired oven so that it arrives at the table warm and super fragrant. What makes the dessert exceptional is that it is soaked not once, but twice in a brown butter sauce — the second pour happens tableside. It’s finished off with a bit of orange zest for brightness and a scoop of hand-spun ice cream. It’s no wonder the team makes around 175 orders of the dessert each week.
Ètra
Italian $$
Ètra, the intimate Italian restaurant from the team behind Cafe Telegrama, is home to one of the best spaghetti al limones in the city — and one of the best sticky toffee puddings. Pastry chef Marissa Brown was brainstorming what desserts to add to the menu during the cooler months and drew inspiration from a recent trip to the U.K. Ètra’s sticky toffee pudding is relatively straightforward and made from a mix of medjool dates that are poached and then softened with baking soda, brown sugar, plenty of butter, and a warm spice blend including allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg. The cake is baked off in individual ramekins, topped with a generous amount of toffee sauce and a scoop of gelato. “At this point, I think it’s an Ètra classic and will remain on the menu for the next 1,000 years,” says chef Evan Algorri.
Thoughts on our guides? Let’s hear it!
We’re gathering feedback on how our guides can better serve you and help you find the next great restaurant, hike or activity in Los Angeles.
Manuela
Downtown L.A. Southern Californian $$$
(Manuela)
Located inside of the Hauser and Wirth art gallery in DTLA, Manuela turns out kitchen masterpieces to match, including a take on sticky toffee pudding made with apples and dates. The dessert arrives topped with diced raw apple and a charming quenelle of chamomile ice cream.
Rumi's Kitchen
Century City Persian $$$
(Calvin B. Alagot / Los Angeles Times)
The ideal dessert after platters of saffron-laced chicken kabob, crispy potato tahdig and smoky pomegranate molasses-glazed short ribs? Turns out it’s a sticky toffee pudding. For the dessert, Sohrab Esmaili, the corporate pastry chef for Rumi’s Kitchen, the Atlanta-founded Persian restaurant chain that recently opened its first Los Angeles location inside the Century City mall, decided to riff on a majoon shake. The popular Persian shake is made with a variety of dates, nuts and dried fruit, so the tender cake, which is made with medjool dates, cinnamon and a splash of buttermilk, arrives topped with a candied orange slice and a pile of salty-sweet date-candied walnuts.
Stiletto
Santa Monica Steakhouse $$$
(Peridot Consulting)
Even though it’s tempting to fill up on pickled jalapeño and comte gougeres and Wagyu rib eye, it’s important to save room for dessert at Stiletto. One of the newest entrants to Los Angeles’ steakhouse scene, the Santa Monica restaurant has British pedigree — chef Patrick Powell grew up in Ireland and made a name for himself cooking in some of London’s top restaurants. So it only makes sense that one of the restaurant’s star desserts is a sticky toffee pudding. Powell says they tested 15 different recipes until they came up with one that was lighter than a typical sticky toffee pudding but felt just as indulgent. The cakes are baked off in individual tart cases, which keeps them from being too dense, and get topped with a butterscotch sauce that is spiked with bourbon just before serving. To balance out the warm elements, a scoop of vanilla ice cream that is “absolutely loaded with vanilla” is added right on top.
Sqirl
East Hollywood New American $$
(Alec Battistoni)
Chef-owner Jessica Koslow and pastry chef Rhaisa Baca eschew the traditional sticky toffee pudding format at Sqirl and instead present the cake as a charming plate of madeleines. The madeleines arrive drenched with a butterscotch sauce — made with both fish sauce and Lyle’s Golden Syrup — and are served with a pile of graham cracker crumbles and a thoughtful scoop of Seville marmalade and crème fraîche ice cream, which according to Koslow, “can really whack through the sweetness.” The dessert is a nod to both her grandmother, who was from Manchester, and her first pastry cook job where they would give away madeleines to guests at the end of the meal. It’s a mistake to end dinner at Sqirl without one.
Tam O’Shanter
Atwater Village Bar
(Khushbu Shah)
It’s always worth popping into Tam O’Shanter for the vibes alone — the over-century-old Scottish pub is full of old-school charm, with framed sketches by Disney illustrators who, along with Walt Disney himself, were longtime regulars. And it’s always worth ordering dessert at this legendary Los Feliz establishment, especially if it’s the sticky toffee pudding. The dessert arrives as a generous slice of date cake, drizzled with lots of warm caramel sauce and served with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream. There is absolutely nothing innovative about this version and that is exactly its appeal. Hot cake, cold ice cream — what more could you want?
Tomat
Westchester Californian $$
(Ashley Randall )
The sticky toffee pudding at Tomat arrives floating in a pool of toffee sauce so shiny, you can see your reflection in it. Chef Harry Posner, who grew up in England, makes the sauce with Billington’s dark brown molasses sugar, which has a much richer caramel flavor than traditional brown sugar. The cake itself is made with dates that are soaked in English breakfast tea before being whizzed into a batter that also contains coffee. The whole thing arrives crowned with a house-made burnt milk gelato laced with cinnamon and other warm spices. Posner says it’s the most popular dessert on the menu, so much so that he made sure it was available at lunch.
Two Hommés
Inglewood West African Southern $$
(Khushbu Shah)
When you sit down to dinner at Two Hommes in Inglewood, make sure to order one of the restaurant’s popular plantain sticky toffee puddings before anything else. They only make 16 a night and it goes fast — for good reason. Made with equal parts dates and plantain in a nod to West African flavors, the cake is luxuriously tender and that’s before it gets topped off with rich bourbon toffee sauce. Pastry chef Alex Bolar also adds a scoop of house-made vanilla ice cream with toasted milk powder on top. And for added crunch, there’s a crumble made from crushed white chocolate graham crackers and fried plantains too.
Wilde's
Los Feliz British $$
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
If you look around the dining room at Wilde’s, the charming, perpetually packed British restaurant on Hillhurst, you’ll notice that nearly every table has at least one order, if not two, of sticky toffee pudding. The ultra moist cake gets its texture from a technique called velveting, where dates are tenderized with baking soda and then covered with hot water, and pureed until silky smooth, explains chef Sarah Durning. As soon as the cake is pulled out of the oven, she pokes several holes in it with a fork and pours a super thick caramel sauce over the top made with brown butter, brown sugar, heavy cream and date vinegar. A thick slice is plated on a pool of tangy creme fraiche creme anglaise and sprinkled with an aged vanilla jaggery powder for an extra kick of caramelized flavor. It’s meant to be shared, but no one will blame you for finishing one entirely on your own.
No matching entries.
Please reset filters to see all entries.
No matching entries.
Please reset filters to see all entries.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Top
