Top: A frozen lime chiboust (or cream patisserie) filled with blackberry ginger coulis and served with whipped cream and a cornmeal cake on the side. Bottom: House coconut ice cream topped with candied sesame seeds. Photos by Collin Richie.
How Kalurah’s pastry chef Kaila Mogg-Stone Kay is elevating dessert
As the resident pastry chef at the seven-month-old Kalurah Street Grill, Kaila Mogg-Stone Kay is one of the few restaurant-based pastry chefs in the region. Her role is not only to create sumptuous breads and desserts, but also to do it in a manner that complements Executive Chef Kelley McCann’s contemporary Southern and globally influenced menu.
Kay says she loves desserts that win over palates not because they’re sweet, but because they’re balanced. Her recent grapefruit tart combines tangy grapefruit curd with white chocolate ganache and grapefruit crèma in a rosemary shortbread crust. It’s sweet, tart and creamy with a hint of herbs.
Pastry isn’t the only side of the kitchen Kay knows. In 2013, she earned a traditional culinary arts degree from the Louisiana Culinary Institute with the dream of one day becoming an executive chef. To make herself more marketable, she decided to pursue a degree in baking and pastry as well, which she began at LCI the following semester.
“I think it’s good to be well-rounded,” Kay says. “Having knowledge of the savory side definitely gives me more creative freedom and range.”
We checked in with Kay about what it’s like creating a restaurant’s dessert menu, making her own wedding cake and the one kitchen tool she can’t live without.
A graduate of Louisiana Culinary Institute, pastry chef Kaila Mogg-Stone Kay is creating tasty food art at Kalurah.
Tell us what went into creating the dessert menu at K Street?
A lot of it is based on what’s seasonally available and what our customers want. It also has to do with what I can do space-wise in the kitchen.
What’s your typical day like?
I come in to the restaurant before anyone so I can do all of my main baking before the rest of the team gets here, so we won’t get in each other’s way. Bread is the first thing, or any detailed baking. We bake all the restaurant’s focaccia and Cuban bread. Later, my pastry assistant and I will do quicker things or step back and develop recipes. We’re working on a homemade pretzel for the bar menu right now.
Kitchen tool you can’t live without?
The rubber spatula. It’s my favorite, hands down. You can do super detailed work. You can fold meringue. You can pretty much do anything with it except whisk.
When it comes to guilty pleasures, do you have a personal favorite?
I love anything chocolate.
What do Baton Rouge palates like when it comes to sweets?
I’m seeing good reception toward desserts that aren’t so sweet and cloying in the way a traditional bread pudding with rum sauce is. I like a dessert with good balance, elements of sweet and tart together, and I think people are really responding to those.
What’s a good example of those types of desserts? And, what new summer desserts are you working on?
We’ve got a peach and butterscotch napoleon that’s been in development and will be coming out soon. We’ve also got a watermelon vacherin (a meringue-based dessert) with lime syrup. We’re taking time to make them perfect.
You got married this spring. Did you make your own wedding cake?
I did. It was three tiers, a vanilla bean cake with lemon cream filling and vanilla bean buttercream. It was very light but stable enough to stand tall. kalurahstreetgrill.com
This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of 225 Magazine.
