Comments (52) Best Crème Brûlée - 2007

Plouf

We've had it with the rosewater infusions, the lavender infusions, the chai infusions, the f'Chrissake blood orange infusions. Crème brûlée should be pure and simple. It should involve nothing more than cream, egg yolks, and sugar. It should have a texture distinct in its exponential creaminess from the eggy flabbiness of flan. Most of all it should be cool and luscious underneath and sweet and crisp on top. There are several nationalistic claims for the custard's parentage, including England (burnt cream) and Spain (crema catalana), but in the teeming melting pot of Belden Place, Plouf takes the glazed-sugar gold. Although this French rendezvous gilds the lily with essence of vanilla bean, the Crème brûlée here is admirably fundamental. Baked, caramelized, and presented in a wide, shallow ramekin, it's surpassingly luxurious beneath its crunchy, wafer-thin crust that's a far cry from the Plexiglas served at many a bistro. A soothing respite from the increasingly complex culinary jungle.