Just a glimpse of chef Louisa Lim’s face lights up all the pleasure centres in my brain. In Pavlovian fashion, I’ve come to associate the pastry chef at three-Michelin-starred Odette with sugar in all its best and noblest forms.
Ordinarily, you’d have to score a coveted table at Odette and enjoy a multi-course meal to taste her beautifully plated and thoughtfully designed creations. But this year, for the first time – pandemic take-home boxes not included – Odette is launching a limited-time-only dessert box that you can savour slowly at home: Three festive desserts by Lim, who was named this year’s Asia’s Best Pastry Chef at the Asia’s 50 Best Awards.
Christmas is her favourite time of the year, Lim said, and that’s why it’s significant that for a holiday she associates with sharing and gifting, the box is a chance for her to connect with “not just the guests of Odette, but also people who are interested in dessert. This, to me, is a very important part of Christmas as well… It’s something people can bring home and share with their family.”
The three petits gateaux she’s created are like Lim herself: Restrained on the outside, ebullient inside. “This box is very me. The desserts are very simple and clean looking, but there are a lot of layers of textures where I want them to be,” she said.
She started out with the idea of a winter colour palette of white and browns; the colours then inspired flavour profiles.
Weeks of work went into creating: “Day and night, I thought about the flavours, how I wanted the desserts to look and taste, how I wanted people to feel when they ate them.” Even the packaging of the box was conceptualised “like a Christmas gift”, she said.
When Lim celebrates Christmas with her family, though, she slaps together something last-minute with whatever she has in her pantry. Relatable, right?
“I come from a typical family. We spend Christmas at the table at a relative’s house,” she shared. “Everyone’s there, there’s food prepared by each relative, like a pot luck situation. We have Asian food and some meats, like pork knuckle we buy from the supermarket. It’s a time for get-togethers, feasts. There’s a lot of food, conversations and desserts.
“I make something, but it’s always simple – nothing like a croquembouche! More like a simple chocolate cake. It depends on what I have on hand, my mood and the time left to do it – very rushed!”
Guess this year, she can just show up with her own boxes under her arm.
The “Gourmandises de Noel by Louisa” festive dessert box (S$68+) is available now for pre-order for self-collection at Odette or its sister restaurant Claudine until Dec 27. For more information, visit www.odetterestaurant.com/gifting
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