Delicious ChikaLicious

21 years on, New York’s first dessert tasting menu is as good as ever.

The best seat at ChikaLicious Dessert Bar in the East Village is, unsurprisingly, at the counter facing the open kitchen. Here, you get a rare glimpse into a pastry chef’s workspace, which is usually holed up and out of sight in restaurant kitchens or basements. You’ll probably have an up-close view of Chika Tillman, the owner, dipping her spoon into a metal food pan filled with Meyer lemon sorbet or some other soft cream in search of the perfect quenelle.

For those who don’t study French culinary textbooks in their free time, in pastry, a quenelle is the product of a fundamental plating technique that makes ordinary scoops look like elegant bodied (but limbless) swans. The slow drag then flick of the wrist should produce a surface so glossy and smooth, it could pass for glass.