critic’s notebook
The chef Marcel Desaulniers, who died last month, had an over-the-top approach to dessert, a sweet counterpoint to the guilt-ridden chocolate culture of the time.
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Tejal Rao, the Food section’s critic at large, used to work in pastry kitchens and always orders dessert.
The layered cake known as Death by Chocolate debuted as a special in 1982 at the Trellis, a polished American restaurant in Williamsburg, Va., and built a cult following long before a dessert could find instant fame on social media.
It’s worth noting that those were pretty weird times for chocolate. Its pleasure was distorted, often framed in the culture as a monstrous, feminine temptation to be punished with the manic repentance of a “Cathy” cartoon. But the chef Marcel Desaulniers, who died last month at 78, was less interested in guilt than in the sheer joy of extravagance.
That was his mission with Death by Chocolate, which he developed with the pastry chef Donald Mack. It was an architectural wonder that loomed 10 inches tall and weighed more than 10 pounds. At a time when every serious restaurant had its lavish, layered chocolate dessert, this one stood out. Slice by slice, word spread, and the kitchen was soon assembling as many as 16 cakes a day to keep up with demand.
Recipe: Try a Trifle Called Death by Chocolate
Within months of its debut, people calling the Trellis to make reservations were checking with the host to see if Death by Chocolate would definitely be available because, look, some of them were traveling very far for a taste of this thing. Diners asked for the recipe, changing their minds when they realized it was in fact several subrecipes that came together in a multiday process. This was the definition of a special-occasion cake. It received fan mail.
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