Anatomy of a Flambé

If you’ve ever been a part of the Messina Hof family and dined at the Vintage House Restaurant, you know that our flambéed desserts play a huge role in making special evenings even more special.

Our Bananas Foster, Strawberries Romanoff, and Cherries Jubilee (featuring our Port Fudge sauce!) are some of our most popular dessert dishes, and with good reason! Not only do they incorporate some of our fabulous dessert wines, like the Angel Late Harvest Riesling which pairs perfectly with the light flavors of our Bananas Foster, or the Tawny Port, which complements the Strawberries Romanoff, but they also include a tableside show with commentary from our very own servers.

The show starts off with an explanation of the ingredients in the dish, and some special ingredients that we add to our flambéed dishes that most restaurants don’t.

Next we start the dish over an open flame, caramelizing the sugar and fruit, before incorporating our other key ingredients (including the dessert wine!).

Finally the real fun begins – the flames! The key to a successful flambé is to allow the pan to get just hot enough to burn off the liquor…but not so hot as to blow the server’s eyebrows off. Just ask Lisa!

Not enough flame for you? Just ask for some fireworks – a little dash of cinnamon, and the flames sparkle!

If you’ve never joined us for a flambéed dessert, let your server know – we’ll be happy to show you how it’s done. Better yet, come out to the Vintage House to try all three, and help us decide which flavor is the best!

A big thank you to VIP Mike Cannain for his wonderful pictures!