Is this Sydney’s best pavlova? I went to The Four Seasons to find out

• Mode Kitchen & Bar has redesigned its dessert menu with a brand new pavlova.
• French pastry chef Nicolas Blanc has created a raspberry-centric dessert that brings a new twist on the classic Australian dessert.
• We think its the best pavlova in Sydney so far.

I think I’ve just found the best pavolva in Sydney.

The USA has key lime pie, New York cheesecake and bananas foster. Europe has French and Roman pastries, baklava and many more regional specialties. Australia? We’ve got lamingtons, tim tams and the greatest dessert of them all: the pavlova.

There are endless versions of this meringue-based dessert, which traditionally cracks open like a kinder surprise, revealing a soft marshmallow centre with a crown of whipped cream, fruit and icing sugar. Some of the country’s very finest restaurants have been putting their own spin on the sweet treat for years, to varying results.

Bennelong and Rockpool usually have great ones, and you’ll find an Indigenous twist at Midden by Mark Olive.

I think the best and most unique, however, is the new one over at The Four Seasons Sydney. You’ll find it on the completely redesigned menu at the luxury property’s signature lobby restaurant, Mode Kitchen & Bar, courtesy of new pastry chef Nicolas Blanc who has re-engineered the kitchen’s signature dessert with a theatrical, floral approach.

The picture-perfect dessert looks like an avant-garde rose with its pink hue (it’s usually white, but currently pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month) and is surrounded by a moat of light raspberry sorbet with a tasteful tinge of lavender. The raspberry meringue cracks open to reveal a yoghurt chantilly centre and a crown of rose, plated above a bowl of smokey dry ice. It serves both the Instagram-focused crowd and serious diners who want to end a meal the right way.

Best of all, it’s light and coats the palate beautifully with an end-note of lavender. I’ve found Bennelong’s famous pavlova quite heavy despite its small size. And while I haven’t yet tasted Mark Olive’s Bush Pavlova at Midden by Mark Olive, the inclusion of wattleseed cream and native fruit coulis could go either way, depending on the growing season. This one represents a nice middle ground, sticking to tradition but twisting the palate just enough to give the kitchen a new sugary signature that’s unlike anything else in Sydney.

I went to Mode Kitchen & Bar earlier this week to try the gorgeous dessert alongside a few other treats that Blanc has been working on. The hotel restaurant has never been as consistently excellent at the hotel’s whisky-powered Grain Bar, but this is the most focused and exacting the food has ever felt.

Gorgeous steak, lamb backstrap, half-shell scallops—all great. However, it’s the dessert menu I”m most interest I’m most interested in. Usually if you want really tightly engineered desserts, that look so good you feel guilty cracking them open, you’d have to fork out hundreds for one of Peter Glimore’s restaurants (Quay or Bennelong). Right now, the majority of Sydney’s best restaurants favour simple, unattractive desserts that taste much far better than they look.

Mode Kitchen & Bar has very approachable prices (they even have a $55 express three-courser for lunch).

And so something as sensual as the Tropique is very attainable. The mango-flavoured cheescake sits on a base of sea salt shortbread with a river of tropical sorbet and a body of cheesecake espuma. It’s absolutely spring on a plate.

My favourite, however, is the coffee & milk, a recipe Blanc wrote as a tribute to his grandmother who liked light coffee desserts. This one has a coffee bean pannacotta mixed up with lady fingers, arabica latte ice-cream, milk foam, coffee caramel, and whisky.

Mode Kitchen & Bar

Address: Ground Floor, 199 George St, The Rocks
Contact: (02) 9250 3160
Opening Hours: Monday – Saturday (12pm – 4pm, 5:30pm – 10pm); Sunday (12pm – 10pm)