Endive with coffee paste and cookie butter

This is one of the strangest dishes you will find in today’s impressive creative arena. It breaks from the mold to such an extent that its very creator, Pascal Barbot, one of the boldest and most lucid minds in the culinary world, is unsure of its place on the menu. It is impossible to place with certainty—it could be categorized as a sweet starter or a salty dessert, even as a precursor to dessert. While this immense value of transcending these concepts (something that characterizes the chef) has merit, what is truly amazing is the level of perfection attained by this madness—it creates boundless pleasure with novel flavors contrasted in perfect harmony. It has bitterness, sweetness, acidity and numerous sapid aromas. It also combines various textures: the endive is tender, evanescent from its long caramelization, while it retains a trace of its natural crunch; the butter takes the shape of a granulated cookie in a sauce; and the coffee paste reaches a precarious, ethereal volume. And the presentation of the elements, separated into three distinct spaces, makes a game out of the protagonists where the diner must experiment and decide whether to eat the endive first by itself or whether it is enhanced by one element or the other; or where these elements disappear between bites of the vegetable. Depending on whether we go from here to there or from there to here, the experiences will dance to different, always brilliant rhythms of originality. How great is Barbot!