Carla Henriques Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You're listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. It is bustling outside because Rock Center is the place to be in December. The tree is up and lit. The rink is open, and they close the streets between Fifth and Sixth, so there is lots of room to roam. I love it.
Speaking of love, our guest is pastry chef Carla Henriques of the Hawksmoor Restaurant Group, and she is making her podcast debut with us today. Carla is known as the queen of puddings at Hawksmoor, and we are not talking about chocolate pudding or rice pudding. Lots of you know this, but pudding is a British term for dessert. And since the Hawksmoor Group started in London, it all makes perfect sense. Carla, however, hails from Lisbon. As a little girl, she'd accompany her mother to her bakery job, and the rest is history. We'll talk about Carlo's career, Hawksmoor's famous cult sticky toffee pudding, the sticky toffee pudding sundae, and then we pretty much go through the entire dessert menu. It is the perfect holiday conversation. Carla's such a cool gal, and I can't wait for you to learn more about her. Stay tuned for my chat with Carla Henriques.
A little housekeeping? If you're looking for some holiday gifts for your favorite foodies, head to cherrybombe.com. You can order a copy of our print magazine, the latest issue just dropped, and it is all about cake, or you can order a gift subscription. You can also buy a ticket to our Jubilee conference as a gift for someone. Jubilee is taking place here in New York City on Saturday, April 25th. If you buy two or more tickets, you get 20% off now till the end of the year. Just head to cherrybombe.com and click on the shop tab.
Now, let's check in with today's guest. Carla Henriques, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Carla Henriques:
Thank you for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
So excited to have you here and thrilled that this is the first podcast you're ever doing.
Carla Henriques:
I know. I'm so excited and nervous and everything, all the emotions together at once. Love it.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that you had a glass of Champagne to prepare. That's my kind of preparation. I wish you had called me and told me you were having a glass of Champagne because I would've had one with you.
Carla Henriques:
I literally had to shoot it down because it was like, we have five minutes. I really need this.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't think I've ever treated Champagne like a shot, but you know.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, it was an expensive shot, I must say.
Kerry Diamond:
Thrilled to have you here.
Carla Henriques:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
You just got back from a long time in the U.K. Before we get into everything that you do now, I want to talk about a very charming part of your biography, that you learned how to bake in your mom's bakery in Lisbon.
Carla Henriques:
In Lisbon, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Stories of you being a little girl in the corner, playing with dough and making baskets and things. Tell us about your mom and tell us about this bakery.
Carla Henriques:
So my mom is an amazing person. She's the person I look to every day. She's a single mother of four. She always works a lot, 16 hours a day. The oldest always had to look after the youngest. My mom used to go work really early in the morning. And sometimes, obviously my sister had to go to school and my old brother is already working. So I used to stay with a town baker.
This is the fun part, and I remember like it was yesterday. So I used to carry all the time with me a piece of chorizo because we cook fresh bread. She had this amazing wooden oven. So my mom would drop me there and I would stay there with six hours. So I used to watch her prep the bread, make the dough. I used to cut my chorizo, roll it into the dough, cook it, and be there just waiting to be able to eat the bread. So that's how I start to fall in love a little bit with the bacon because my mother used to work with a bakery that didn't really let the kids be there as normal, right?
So then my mother got promoted to a supervisor, a head pastry chef of this huge bakery in Lisbon that they used to supply every single flight that would land in Lisbon. So we used to make 6,000 croissants a day, 10,000 Portuguese custard tarts. Then she was able to take me because she used to work almost overnight. So I used to sleep in the morning. Then my sister used to drive me there, drop me with my mother, and I used to stay there for a couple of hours.
So I used to stay in the corner just making... I used brioche dough, just make some egg baskets. And as I got older, I started getting into, I really want to do this. I want to cook, I want to learn. And yeah, that's how it really started. I fell in love with cooking with the smell of the butter, with the smell of the eggs, with the spices and all the nuts. And I just fell in love with it.
Kerry Diamond:
How old were you when that first started?
Carla Henriques:
Oh, I was about three years old. It's crazy that I still have that memories. And not long ago, I went back to the old town that I used to live and I saw the baker. She's still there. She's like 80 years old and it was so amazing to hug her, and she still remembered me. She hasn't seen me for probably 35 years.
Kerry Diamond:
And you must have been the cutest little kid with those big brown eyes and your curls. I could see it.
Carla Henriques:
I was always a pirate. I was a little pirate. I was the queen of town. I was the only girl in town as well. So I grew up in Lisbon, but just outside Lisbon, not really in the city. So I was the only little girl in town. So you can imagine, right? I was riding with everyone. I was with the farmers. I didn't have clothes to wear because all my clothes was dirty because I was always in the mud. I was always climbing trees. Yeah, it was a fun way to grow up.
Kerry Diamond:
And how about your mom and her career?
Carla Henriques:
So yeah, my mom, she was a cleaner. I mean, she did whatever she did to raise four kids without a partner. So she starts cleaning a bakery. That's how she started. She was a bit like me. She wanted to learn. She was very enthusiastic. So they started giving her a chance to do something with her life that wasn't just cleaning. She took her every opportunity she had. And then 10 years later, she was running the bakery. That sounds pretty amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Did she stick with baking?
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, she sticks with baking. Now she's retired finally. She has arthritis, so she can't really do much. But yeah, she's living life. She just got married as well a week ago.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, congrats, mom.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, I know. So excited.
Kerry Diamond:
That's great. Is she still in Lisbon?
Carla Henriques:
She's still in Lisbon, yeah. She has all the grandkids next to her and she's just traveling around the country, drinking port. She's living the life.
Kerry Diamond:
She is living the life.
Carla Henriques:
Well deserved.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm happy to hear that. Talk to us about Portuguese baked goods. What are some of the signature baked goods? I've never been to Lisbon. I'm so sad because-
Carla Henriques:
You're missing out.
Kerry Diamond:
I know. I know how much... People love Lisbon so much. So many Americans say they want to move there and they have moved here.
Carla Henriques:
Loads, yeah. Loads moved there. I have loads of friends asking me for recommendations and stuff.
Kerry Diamond:
No doubt.
Carla Henriques:
Every time I go there, is my worst nightmare because I am a pastry chef because I do love sweets. Sweets are everything to me. Trying to be healthy is difficult because I just want to eat everything. The Portuguese custard tarts is famous everywhere in the world. Difficult to find good ones outside Portugal, but you do have some out there.
Kerry Diamond:
Say the word again. What kind of tarts?
Carla Henriques:
Portuguese custard tarts, called pastel de nata.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Carla Henriques:
The most famous Portuguese desserts. But I mean, we do everything from donuts, from brioches, from bread, from typical French pastries. I think that the pastry generally in Portugal are probably in my top five, the best in the world for sure. They're just amazing, really well-made. The schools there are really good, a really good start for a generation that wants to do something with their life. Definitely, pastries are amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
You land in Lisbon. You can only get one pastry at one bakery. What do you get and where do you go?
Carla Henriques:
Definitely pastel de nata for sure. For sure you can get them everywhere, but pastel de belém in Belém, you're right next to the sea. It's just a beautiful area. I mean, you have to queue for a little while because there's always a massive queue outside and you cannot eat one. This is the big mistake if you think you can.
Kerry Diamond:
What's the size?
Carla Henriques:
They're pretty small. They're pretty small.
Kerry Diamond:
And what's in them?
Carla Henriques:
So it's puff pastry. The secret of the puff pastry is that we use lard, pork lard on it. So we roll the puff pastry on a table and then we mix the lard with butter and then we roll it back together. I mean, it sounds-
Kerry Diamond:
Yum. Keep going.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. And then we make... And people call it custard, but it's not really a custard. We make a syrup, a really thick syrup with cinnamon and lemon zest. And then it's just a really thick mix with butter, flour, water, loads, loads of yolks because Portuguese love yolks. We cook at about 400 Fahrenheit, so it's a really high temperature. And it's just crispy and soft in the middle. We also put a lot of cinnamon on top because Portuguese people love cinnamon. I'm addicted to cinnamon, put it in everything. But it's just that you can't go wrong with it. I never met anybody that didn't like them.
It's the first thing that people ask me when I go home. It's like, "Please, please chef, please bring me some Portuguese custard tarts." Sometimes I fail because I bring them but then I get hungry, and I ate them. They don't get into the kitchen, I eat them before I get there.
Kerry Diamond:
Or when people are like, bring me back bread or croissant from Paris or something, you're like, yeah, that's not the point.
Carla Henriques:
And it's not the same. You have to be there.
Kerry Diamond:
You have to be there, exactly. These aren't things meant to last for days and to travel. But cinnamon, I need to give a shout-out to because there is one cinnamon I am obsessed with and I think it is one of the best smelling things in the world, the Burlap & Barrel cinnamon. It's called royal cinnamon. It's an American-
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, yeah. I have tasted. It's one of the best.
Kerry Diamond:
It just smells like heaven.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. I like burning them as well. I love burned cinnamon. We actually have at the Hawksmoor right now, burned cinnamon ice cream.
Kerry Diamond:
Ooh.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. I love the smell. I love the flavor. I love the taste. Oh, it's just great.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest. The holiday issue of Cherry Bombe Magazine is finally here and the team and I love this issue so much. It's all about cake and features three incredible self-taught cake artists on the covers: Lucie Franc de Ferriere of From Lucie, Aimee France, a.k.a. yungkombucha420, and Amy Yip of Yip.Studio. The issue is packed with recipes and lots of great stories. Head to cherrybombe.com to subscribe or order your issue. You can pick whichever cover you want, or check out our list of stockists around the country. We love our stockists and you can find Cherry Bombe Magazine in great places like Book Larder in Seattle, Vivienne Culinary Books in Portland, Oregon, and Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis.
You make the decision to leave Lisbon.
Carla Henriques:
So, yes. I always hated school. I was that person that I just need to be busy and school wasn't giving me what I wanted. So my mother came to me and said, "Look, I know you don't like school, but you really love pastries. What about you just go and take a course?" So I was like, "Fine, whatever you want, do it."
So I went mostly to have something, a paper saying that I took it because I already knew how to do most of it. I was 17 when I finished my course, so I was still pretty young when I finished it. And I got an offer, one of the best jobs in Lisbon which was working for magazines and books. So my job at 17, almost 18, it was creating. So every day, I would walk into the studio. I met amazing people, 17. I met the Spice Girls over there.
My job basically every day was walking in, they give me a paper and say, "Today you're going to make five desserts with milk." So I'll be doing five desserts. I would just be in studio just creating.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you fall into that job?
Carla Henriques:
When I finished the course, they chose the best three people and they chose me to be one of the best. Actually, the first job they offered me was to be a teacher at the school while I was 17, which I thought was that's crazy. I don't have the experience to teach.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you a teacher in your soul?
Carla Henriques:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you think they saw that?
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, I think so. I would never move project till I nailed that project. Sometimes, you would be doing croissants and next day, you'll be doing something else. I would not move from the croissants till my croissant was the best croissant. Sometimes, it would take me two weeks, but I would not move from that. So I always very stubborn. I always need to be better than everyone in a good way, but I'm always have to be the fastest doing something.
Even these days, if I'm in a kitchen and I see a chef cutting lemons or doing segments and I feel like I have to be next to it. If you cut one, I cut two. If you cut two, I cut three. I have this thing, but that makes me good.
Kerry Diamond:
I was just going to say before, it sounds like you're competitive, but most competitive with yourself, except in situations like what you just described.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. But I'm very competitive, very competitive. I like that. I think that's how it made me good at my job.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Who was it, Danny Meyer? I mean, I'm sure a lot of people have said this, but I think Danny Meyer at some point said, "You should be 1% better every day."
Carla Henriques:
Always. He just makes you a better person in everything, right?
Kerry Diamond:
Agreed. You leave Lisbon?
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, I don't know. I turned 18. I enjoyed my experience doing magazines and books.
Kerry Diamond:
You met the Spice Girls, you're like, "I'm out of here, what's left?"
Carla Henriques:
I'm done. There's nothing else to do here. So I went to open a five-star hotel in Lisbon still. I was there for six months. My chef left the magazines and books and offered me a position as a sous chef when I was 18, which is crazy as well. So I took it and then it just wasn't for me. I needed something else. So I decided to move to London. I did not speak English. I would say hello, goodbye, and that's it.
Kerry Diamond:
I read your story about the cucumber and the walk-in.
Carla Henriques:
Oh, God, yeah. Actually the other day, I just told that story again because someone who was telling me how hard it is. The good thing about that is I put myself in people's shoes. And these days, you have so many people that worked in kitchens that came from Africa or India or whatever, and they don't really speak the language.
I have been there. I know how it's hard, how the failure that you feel with yourself, the frustrations you get from yourself. So I'm extra careful with that. So if you don't know, just say it to me and I'm more than happy to walk you there and show you what it is. And if I need to tell you once, twice, three times, I'm still okay with it. I will not get angry or upset about it. No, we're here to help each other.
And I think when you do that to people as well, they stay with you for longer as well. They wanted to work for you. They trust you and they... I mean, most of my chefs spend years with me. I have people with me for the last 10 years.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Carla Henriques:
And that shows a lot about how you treat people, people would stay.
Kerry Diamond:
It also sounds like you have a lot of empathy.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And I'm guessing that's from your mom.
Carla Henriques:
Yes, definitely my mother.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. To move to London, not speaking any English, you get a job in restaurants. Do you want to tell the walk-in story? Because not to put you on the spot, but it's remarkable to see how far you've come. And I think it's a great reminder to people. I don't know, maybe you're feeling a little down on their luck or something right now, just to see what you were able to achieve.
Carla Henriques:
So when I moved to London, I started working in a bakery. So my first job was at a bakery, but the good thing is most of the people, 80% of the people are not baker in London, they were Portuguese. So I did not really have to speak English, which for me was great at the first year that I was in London.
But then they would not pay me really well, and I would work a lot, and they would take advantage of my work. I was never afraid of not speaking the language. So I was like, "You know what? I'm just going to go and try." So I got offered a job in this restaurant, working for Australians, lovely people. I enjoyed them so much. It's so much fun.
Kerry Diamond:
Australians are great.
Carla Henriques:
Oh, it's so much fun and I loved it. But in a busy service, my pastry chef… could you believe she never told me she was Portuguese. I worked with her for eight months, she never told me she was Portuguese. Apparently, she just wanted me to learn a language, which I was fine with it but at some stage, she could help me. She never did. Fine, love her, but hate her at the same time.
So it was a night they're really busy and the chef starts screaming like, "I need a cucumber. Carla, get me a cucumber." I was like, "Okay, I'm going to go in the fridge and I'm going to find a cucumber." I was screaming. We were in the fridge by myself, I was like, "Crap, what is a cucumber?" And I went back to the kitchen, I'm like, "I'm so sorry. I don't know what a cucumber is." But then he was so peaceful and he looked at me, he's like, "Don't worry."
Put his hand on my shoulder, talk me to the fridge and say, "Carla, this is a cucumber." I'm like, that was the best day of my life.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you say cucumber in Portuguese?
Carla Henriques:
Oh, God, pipino. You see, it has nothing to do with it.
Kerry Diamond:
No.
Carla Henriques:
I was trying to find clues, but it was nothing there. So I was just looking at the fridge. Could be anything. Just could be anything.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you still traumatized by cucumbers or you've gotten past that?
Carla Henriques:
I love cucumber, smashed cucumbers.
Kerry Diamond:
Smashed cucumber. Oh my gosh. It's so easy to make it at home.
Carla Henriques:
I do it all the time. My fridge sometimes, I joke it's always a light because there's nothing in there because I'm always traveling everywhere. But there's always a cucumber. There's always soy sauce. Yeah, definitely can make smash cucumber all the time.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so funny. When we have time to do a speed round at the end, we always say, "What's always in your refrigerator?" No one has said a light.
Carla Henriques:
A light.
Kerry Diamond:
But yes, we've all been there. You establish yourself in London, and you're on the pastry path.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, always.
Kerry Diamond:
And you stay on that?
Carla Henriques:
Stay always on pastry. I work in a few restaurants in London. I stayed at that restaurant for about a year and a half. And then I went to work for another company, which is pretty funny because now I'm doing a steakhouse and it was a seafood restaurant. I worked there for three years, which I learned so much. They were very tough for me. They induced that back in the days, it was pretty crazy, especially being a woman as well.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. London was the epicenter for, I mean, Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsey and all the shouty chefs.
Carla Henriques:
Ream at you.
Kerry Diamond:
And throw things.
Carla Henriques:
I saw stoves thrown at people. It was crazy. It was crazy times, but it made me tough. I had to, or I make it or I break it. It was definitely that. But I always felt like I was pretty tough. They helped me a lot. I saw a lot of wrong things and good things.
But then after three years working there, they opened a restaurant in Dubai. So they invited me to be the head pastry chef in Dubai, which I went. I loved it and I hated it. It was just a beautiful restaurant. The culture is lovely, but it was just wasn't for me as a female. I'm a free woman. I like to be free. I like to do whatever I want, whatever I feel like and that wasn't the case. So I decided to come back to London.
Then I opened one restaurant with Soho House. And then after a year, I like to move. I get really bored doing the same things. So it was always places that never let me really be myself or create things. So then I went through a couple of trials. I went to a Michelin star. I actually accept the job, one of them.
And then at last minute, the agency called me and said, "Hey, Carla, I have these guys. I know you already accepted a job, but please come and meet them. It's nothing that you ever done. It's a steak restaurant. I don't really think you're going to take it, but they're such a nice people and I would love you to go and meet them."
Kerry Diamond:
So you had accepted a job?
Carla Henriques:
I did accept a job the day before.
Kerry Diamond:
You got talked into go, wow.
Carla Henriques:
To go at Hawksmoor. So I came to Hawksmoor. It was the second restaurant they were opening. They opened Spitalfields and then after three years later, they decided to open Covent Garden, Seven Dials. So I came to the interview and I ended up meeting the owners. I met everybody, the owners, executive chef. They all treat me like I already work for them. It was so warm that I accept the job even before I had a trial. I don't even know what I'd done.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a good hiring tactic. If you really want somebody, treat them like they have the job already.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. I left very confused. I was like, I don't know what... Did I took the job? Did they say yes?
Kerry Diamond:
What just happened? Yeah.
Carla Henriques:
I didn't even ask how much money they're going to pay me. It felt right. So I had to walk to the other restaurant and tell them... I know I was really honest. I just said, "I'm really sorry." I was really excited to start here, but I think I just find my place. I find my weirdos because they're as weird as me. Yeah, I think I find my people and yeah, it's 15 years later still there.
Kerry Diamond:
15 years. Oh, my gosh. Wow. And now your whole tribe of weirdos.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, we're all a tribe.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. And you have so many locations now.
Carla Henriques:
14.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you stay in London?
Carla Henriques:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
For how long and when did you move here?
Carla Henriques:
So I have been here just before COVID hit. So I came here. So my birthday's on the 31st of December.
Kerry Diamond:
You're a New Year's Eve baby. Oh, so is my nephew, Will. Hi, Will.
Carla Henriques:
Capricorn.
Kerry Diamond:
Happy birthday.
Carla Henriques:
Hey, Will. Yeah, so I'm a Capricorn. So I moved here on the 31st of December of 2019 to open Hawksmoor and then we had to close three months after COVID. So we all had to run back to London. I run back to Portugal. But yeah, I've been here, let's say, four years.
Kerry Diamond:
Now you are a Brooklyn girl?
Carla Henriques:
I'm a Brooklyn girl.
Kerry Diamond:
I just had Lily Allen, West End Girl in my head.
Carla Henriques:
I'm addicted to that album. It is so good.
Kerry Diamond:
I think there's so many good albums this year that I think are masterpieces.
Carla Henriques:
She's great.
Kerry Diamond:
That's one of them. But she was a Brooklyn girl and a West End Girl. You're a Brooklyn girl.
Carla Henriques:
Love Brooklyn.
Kerry Diamond:
Love Brooklyn. How'd you wind up in Brooklyn?
Carla Henriques:
Honest with you, it wasn't my first choice at the beginning. We came from-
Kerry Diamond:
I live in Brooklyn, but that's okay.
Carla Henriques:
I love Brooklyn, but when I moved here, I moved to Harlem. So I was in Harlem. I had some friends over and they used to rent one room for Airbnb. So I messaged, "Hey guys, I need a room to stay. I know you have Airbnb. I just need it for a month so I can find my feet." They were like, "Girl, this is your room." So I was like, I ended up staying before COVID.
And then I came back. Senna is from Brazil and Daniel is from Boston. So they end up going to Boston and then to Brazil. And then one month before I moved, I reached out. I was like, "Hey guys, I'm coming back. Are we doing this again? Are we all moving together?" And they're like, "Hell yes." So they came back first. They got another apartment in Harlem and we moved together again.
Then they decided to move to Brazil after six months. My best friend, Kelly, she came to Hawksmoor. She moved from the U.K. as well, so we're like, "You know what? We're going to find an apartment together." But we didn't have any credit score. So it was so crazy that I even offered to pay a month, a year rent. No one would give us an apartment because we didn't have any...
Kerry Diamond:
New York is a tough place.
Carla Henriques:
It is crazy.
Kerry Diamond:
That's why that song exists. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
Carla Henriques:
I mean, by the way, I was singing that song on the 31st of December 2019 when I was landing in New York.
Kerry Diamond:
Listen, babe, I was born here and I probably sang that song to myself a few times a week because it's so hard here. And I just remind myself, you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
Carla Henriques:
You can make it anywhere. Yeah. And then that was that. And then we find-
Kerry Diamond:
Carla and I will not be breaking into songs.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. And cry at the end of it. And then the only people that got us an apartment, it was in Brooklyn. They didn't give us apartment the first place, the same email saying that, "You guys sound really cool. So you want to come to the office so we can meet you guys." So I came in, I bring chocolates. I had boxes of chocolate. I need to win these guys. I need to find a place to live in this city.
Yeah, they fall in love with us and we fall in love with them. And then it's been three years. We're still in Flatbush.
Kerry Diamond:
Great. Brooklyn's the best.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. I love the community out there. Food is great. People is lovely.
Kerry Diamond:
The whole city. New York's just an amazing place, all the great people.
Carla Henriques:
And it gets everyone jealous. Every time I go out to London, they're like, "Where you live?" "I live in Brooklyn." They were like, "Oh my God, I'm so jealous of you." Brooklyn is cool. It's a great area.
Kerry Diamond:
So many good bakers here.
Carla Henriques:
Oh yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, the number of bakeries that have opened, even just post pandemic, it just blows my mind. But let's talk about your menu. Let's jump ahead. So you've been there 15 years, you got your fingerprints all over the menu.
Carla Henriques:
All over.
Kerry Diamond:
You are known as the queen of puddings.
Carla Henriques:
It's crazy. I went from the princess of pastries to the queen of puddings. I think like every five years-
Kerry Diamond:
What's more fun, princess or queen?
Carla Henriques:
I mean, queen, obviously. Well, I love the title of queen. I cannot be a queen without having my princesses and my princes. So all my team is right behind me and I can't do anything by myself. They made me really stand out.
Kerry Diamond:
So you're the queen mother?
Carla Henriques:
I'm the queen mother. I think so. Yeah, I think so. My team, especially here in New York, they are so amazing. Every time I come back from London, just so excited to see me. They always have desserts for me to try. They were like, "Oh, chef, we've been working on this." And that gets me so excited. They also know that I'm very opinionated about things. So if something has potential, then we can spend some time make it better.
Kerry Diamond:
In the U.K., puddings...
Carla Henriques:
Puddings is everything.
Kerry Diamond:
Is dessert. When we say dessert, you say puddings, right?
Carla Henriques:
Yes. But they also say puddings to savory. Girl, I'm Portuguese. I don't know why, but for me, yeah, puddings is desserts. It just makes no sense that-
Kerry Diamond:
So, it's interchangeable. As we get into this next part of the conversation, don't get too confused. Puddings is dessert, but pudding is also pudding.
Carla Henriques:
Also pudding. Yeah. You have savory puddings which I make with seaweed pastry, lots of meat and beef which we also have at Hawksmoor. And then you call it pudding, just sticky toffee pudding.
Kerry Diamond:
We're going to go through the whole puddings menu because I have it up in front of me and it sounds unbelievable. Let's start with the one you just referenced, sticky toffee pudding. For someone who's never had that, what is it? Is that the queen of puddings?
Carla Henriques:
Yes. That's everything for Hawksmoor. It's been on a menu as long as I have been on Hawksmoor for 15 years. Actually, it was on a menu before I started, but they used to buy it. So everything before I started, it used to be bought in.
Kerry Diamond:
Which a lot of steakhouses do. I just found out the other day about a very famous steakhouse here in Manhattan that buys its cheesecake from a cheesecake shop that I will not-
Carla Henriques:
They do not have a pastry chef. We do have seven pastry chefs and we make everything in-house from ice creams, from chocolates, from all the desserts, from burger buns. The only thing we don't really make here is sourdough, but everything is made in-house. We have a huge team.
Kerry Diamond:
So many places deprioritized pastry chefs. So many of our star pastry chefs basically got kicked to the curb during the pandemic. It's terrible.
Carla Henriques:
I'm very, very lucky to be able to express myself and to have a voice. They do listen to me. I think that's the reason I've been there for that long. They do listen. They always care about how the menu looks like, how we're creating, where we get our ideas from. I cannot complain about that. They just make me be myself. It's great. It says it all on a menu. When you have people coming into Hawksmoor just to have desserts and cocktails, it's something that makes me so happy.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow, that is amazing. Especially because it's a steakhouse.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, 100%.
Kerry Diamond:
The sticky toffee pudding, if I were to walk through just one of the Hawksmoor's, is that the dessert everybody orders?
Carla Henriques:
Yes. So that's the biggest seller. We sell about 400 a day. 400 day no, sorry, sorry. No, that would be too much. 400 a week. Oh, 400 a day, damn.
Kerry Diamond:
For both of us, our jaws were on the floor. We're like, "What? That's crazy." What makes your sticky toffee pudding unique?
Carla Henriques:
It's the ingredients.
Kerry Diamond:
And for folks who've never had it, what's in it?
Carla Henriques:
Definitely the ingredients. So we use fresh Medjool dates. We also cook our dates with water and bicarbonate of soda. So we cook it for a long time, so the dates become black, completely black. Then we use the best sugar for me, which is Billington's. We use dark and light muscovado sugar, which when I moved to the U.S. was very difficult to find it. Took me a long time to find a supplier that can supply the amount that we use.
Yeah, I think it's just ingredients really. It's a very simple recipe. You guys can find it anywhere on Instagram, on our books. I'm very cool giving my stuff away. I really don't mind that people want to do at home or at the restaurants. I'm not very good not giving my stuff away. I should be sometimes, but I'm not.
Kerry Diamond:
It's understandable. I think people who get into hospitality...
Carla Henriques:
And everyone asks me for the recipes. I'm always happy to give my recipes away.
Kerry Diamond:
You said books. Does Hawksmoor have some cookbooks?
Carla Henriques:
Two books.
Kerry Diamond:
Didn't know that.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. We have “Hawksmoor at Home” and “Hawksmoor Restaurants.”
Kerry Diamond:
And there are dessert recipes in there?
Carla Henriques:
There are all dessert recipes in there. All the Hawksmoor classics are in there. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. We might have to make some sticky toffee pudding. Not only are we all about Brooklyn here at the studio, we also love dates. I had some dates last night, Rancho Meladuco. I just slice them in half, put a little peanut butter inside. So good.
Carla Henriques:
I don't know. I'm not the biggest fan of peanut butter.
Kerry Diamond:
I think it's probably an American thing. Wait, but the next thing on your puddings menu is peanut butter shortbread with salted caramel ice cream and Original Beans chocolate.
Carla Henriques:
My favorite chocolate in the whole world.
Kerry Diamond:
So you do have peanut butter on your menu?
Carla Henriques:
I do, and I love it. So that one is only in the U.K., not in the U.S. We have, the peanut butter shortbread has also been on the menu as long as I have been. It's the only two desserts I cannot take it off. When I take it off, I got absolute batter on Twitter. I tried to take it off twice and I got so much threats.
Kerry Diamond:
So we have to go to the U.K. if we want this?
Carla Henriques:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Is the recipe in the cookbook?
Carla Henriques:
Yes, it is.
Kerry Diamond:
I might try to make it.
Carla Henriques:
Yes, it is, but that's a mix between me and my mother. So yeah, my mother used a very Portuguese recipe called baba de camelo. So I tried to recreate that into this dessert.
Kerry Diamond:
I love a really sandy shortbread.
Carla Henriques:
Oh, I love it. And the thing is we actually don't use peanut butter. We roast our peanuts and we blend it with the flour to make the shortbreads. So we don't use peanut butter on it.
Kerry Diamond:
Salted caramel ice cream, self-explanatory. What is Original Beans chocolate?
Carla Henriques:
So Original Beans chocolate is the chocolate we use in all Hawksmoors. So we are a sustainability company, so they are all about what we do to save the planet. For each tree they cut, they plant three more. They're all about saving the animals, the elephants, the gorillas.
Kerry Diamond:
I have to confess, I've never heard of Beans.
Carla Henriques:
Oh, so good, Original Beans. It's amazing. They're very expensive, really expensive, but save the trees. All the bags the chocolate comes in, they're compostable.
Kerry Diamond:
I'll do some homework on them. We've talked about London and the Hawksmoor locations in the U.K., but you're in Dublin. I walked past the Dublin one when I was in Ireland last time.
Carla Henriques:
You should have gone inside.
Kerry Diamond:
I know.
Carla Henriques:
You know what? You're in Ireland the same time I went.
Kerry Diamond:
No.
Carla Henriques:
And I nearly messaged you.
Kerry Diamond:
Why didn't you message me? Everybody else did.
Carla Henriques:
Because you're in Cork. I think you went to Cork. So it was the day that you went to Cork because I was following your own line.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I've spent a lot of time in Cork. Well, you can't not go see Darina Allen.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, it's fair. You have to.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, talk about the queen. They're not into royalty over there, but Darina is our queen. Hi, Darina, if you're listening. If you're in the U.K., you can go to a Hawksmoor in Dublin.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. So you have eight in London and you have one in Liverpool, one in Manchester in the north, and then you have in Edinburgh and then in Scotland, and then you have Dublin. Then obviously, we moved to this side. So we have Chicago, New York. And I cannot say where, but we open another one maybe next year.
Kerry Diamond:
I heard some things in the works. I love that you're in Manchester. I've never been, but I'm obsessed because of the music scene.
Carla Henriques:
So cool.
Kerry Diamond:
I love Smiths, New Order, Oasis, everybody.
Carla Henriques:
Accent every time. Just like for me, one of the things I always tell people is when I get a black taxi, I arrived in Manchester, I get a taxi. And the way that the taxi driver just say, "You're right, love." Everyone just says love. But for anybody, for a woman, a man, whatever, it's so warm. You're right, love.
Kerry Diamond:
I would literally go somewhere just to hear that.
Carla Henriques:
Oh, my God. I feel like I'm at home.
Kerry Diamond:
Next up, Black Forest pavlova with wild Morello cherries, sour cherry sorbet, and dark chocolate mousse. That sounds fabulous.
Carla Henriques:
It is a classic. So for me, it was that have a taken on a classic. I think London loves a classic. London loves a classic dessert. And for me it was like, what can I do that is very Christmasy? And he just looks great. You have a chocolate pavlova.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, the pavlova itself is chocolate, not white?
Carla Henriques:
So it's half-half. So you have half-half. So I just literally, I make the pavlova and then I melt some chocolate, put it over and it's marbled. It's just marbles in there. I do a quenelle with it. So we cook it and it looks like a quenelle. I break it on a middle and I put cherry cream, a lot of alcohol because I don't know, sometimes I do like to add the lots of alcohol in my desserts. And if you call it Black Forests, it has to have alcohol on it. So I use a lot of Kirsch on it. It's just delicious.
Kerry Diamond:
That sounds great.
Carla Henriques:
It became crazy online as well. People just comes for the Hawksmoor to have. And if you book the private dining rooms, you get a massive one, so one to share for like 10 people.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have a dessert tray or trolley?
Carla Henriques:
I don't. I wish we did.
Kerry Diamond:
I feel like we're only four in, but this sounds like it would lend itself beautifully.
Carla Henriques:
When we do about like 700, 800 covers a night, I think everyone would hate that trolley, especially the stuff who were like, "I cannot get that trolley again."
Kerry Diamond:
We were talking about Darina Allen in Ballymaloe down in Cork. Do you know JR, the pastry chef at Ballymaloe House?
Carla Henriques:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
He does a trolley.
Carla Henriques:
Oh, I love that.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh. It was just the most magical thing in the world.
Carla Henriques:
Oh, a cheese trolley.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes.
Carla Henriques:
I always wanted to do a cheese trolley. I love cheese.
Kerry Diamond:
Great too.
Carla Henriques:
It's a great way for me to finish my meal, used to having a cheese. I shouldn't say that... But cheese-
Kerry Diamond:
You can have both. You can have both.
Carla Henriques:
100%.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Next. Upside-down apple and almond cake with calvados sauce and sour cream ice cream.
Carla Henriques:
That's definitely my mother's. She used to make every... Again, I kept saying about my mother, but she's a big influence. And she used to make, every Sunday, upside-down cake with whatever she had in the fridge. That'd be pineapple or that would be apple. So that's a take on it. It's also gluten-free.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you change up the fruit?
Carla Henriques:
Yes. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
It's gluten-free, great to meals. How do you make it gluten-free?
Carla Henriques:
We use chestnut flour. So I mix chestnut flour with almond flour.
Kerry Diamond:
Sour cream ice cream. Oh, that must be yummy, like a little tang.
Carla Henriques:
So it's very tang and it's just a perfect combination between sweet and sour. You have the sweetness of the dessert, cut with the calvados, but also cut with the sour cream and obviously salt because I put lots of it in it.
Kerry Diamond:
Next up, lemon meringue tart with creme fraiche.
Carla Henriques:
Lemon is my thing. I mean, it's something that I don't like because when you go to a restaurant or a bakery or whatever and you order something with lemon and it's just sweet. For me, when I order something with lemon is because I'm a lemon lover. It has to be tangy. You have to feel it in the back of your throat how sour it is. Yeah, that's how my lemon tart is. It just has to be sour.
Kerry Diamond:
For the lemon lovers.
Carla Henriques:
Yes. 100%.
Kerry Diamond:
Next, we have to discuss this. Mince pies, three per portion. Some folks listening are going to be like, "I have absolutely no idea what a mince pie is."
Carla Henriques:
Mince pies is a traditional British Christmas, I don't know, it's called a cookie, but no, it's a tart. It's a little tart, which we make our own sweet pastry. Instead of eggs, I use cream, so it makes it much more crispier. Inside, we start making the mix six months before. So we use loads of Kirsch, loads of vodka, and we leave it with currents, black currants, sultanas, raisins, lemon peel, orange peel, and it just macerates for about six months.
Kerry Diamond:
Six months. That's incredible. So almost like what we would put in a fruitcake.
Carla Henriques:
Yes. It's exactly what you would put in fruitcake, but it's all in the little...
Kerry Diamond:
So do you have an appointment on your calendar, like a reminder? Six months, you have to start.
Carla Henriques:
In June, they start making them straight away. And then a couple of, say October, they start making them and they start freezing them. So we make the dough, we make it on and freeze it, and then we make it fresh every day because the demand is crazy.
Kerry Diamond:
During the holidays?
Carla Henriques:
Yes, during the holidays. So we only put it on the menu the month of December and it goes to charity as well.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's great.
Carla Henriques:
So we make no profit in it. It's going to help the kids to get food and presents.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's amazing. All right. So then you've got ice cream and sorbet on the menu. We're going to skip ahead to the sticky toffee sundae because I might just fall off my stool here. This sounds so amazing. Clotted cream ice cream.
Carla Henriques:
Love clotted cream.
Kerry Diamond:
Sticky toffee sponge and toffee sauce.
Carla Henriques:
So the sundae came from... I mean, being a sustainability company, I like to not waste anything. So when we make our sticky toffees, I always have the tops out. So at the beginning, I used to give stuff till they had enough because it was every day eating sticky toffee pudding.
So I thought, you know what, let's create something where we can reuse it. So we're going to make a version of the sticky toffee but in a nice, colder way to have it. So I came back with that and then became so popular that we have to start making the sticky toffee pudding just because of the sundae. Yeah, we sell about, I don't want to lie but about 150 every Sunday. Every Sunday, especially on Sundays, people love the sundae.
Kerry Diamond:
I would want that for my birthday with like a... Actually, I'd want most of your dessert to my birthday with candles stuck inside.
Carla Henriques:
There you go. You know where to come.
Kerry Diamond:
I do. Then you have chocolates for the table or the takeaway, which is really nice.
Carla Henriques:
Add the salted caramel Rolos.
Kerry Diamond:
On the cheese menu, you have a selection of Neal's Yard cheeses.
Carla Henriques:
Neal's Yard cheeses, yeah, which we change every...
Kerry Diamond:
That's damson plums, right?
Carla Henriques:
Damson plums, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And oat biscuits. I love an oat biscuit.
Carla Henriques:
I love oat biscuits. All made in-house, but also sell with fruit bread as well. And every month, we change the cheese on the cheeseboards.
Kerry Diamond:
Oat biscuits, not super popular here but when I see them in a store and I'm putting together a cheeseboard, I snapped.
Carla Henriques:
I just had them two days ago. I baked them and when they cook a fresh out of the oven... I can give you my recipe.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Is it in the cookbook?
Carla Henriques:
No, I don't think so.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Carla Henriques:
I don't think so. I don't think there's any cheese on a book actually, but I give you my recipe.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite kind of cheese?
Carla Henriques:
That's a nice question. I wasn't expecting that one. But I do love a cheddar cheese.
Kerry Diamond:
We've got to keep you on your toes here at Radio Cherry Bombe, Carla.
Carla Henriques:
Happy with that. I love a cheddar. I love king's cheddar with onion chutney. Love it. I also love a soft cheese. I love a baked cheese. My sister does a really nice soft baked with... So she puts quince paste all over the cheese, like a Camembert, almost. She puts creme paste all over and then she covers with puff pastry. And she bakes it and she gives that as a starter. And I mean, it's so simple and glorious. Give me a nice piece of sourdough bread and I'm happy.
Kerry Diamond:
I love a baked cheese, baked brie.
Carla Henriques:
Yes. I'm very simple when it comes to that. It makes me so happy to have.
Kerry Diamond:
I remember one, gosh, when was this Thanksgiving? It wasn't Christmas. Some family members were coming over and dinner wound up being much later. We might have been going to a restaurant on Thanksgiving, which we don't normally do. This was years ago. And I needed a really quick starter and I ran across the street to the bodega and they had brie. It was amazing because it's not a brie kind of bodega.
They had a small wheel of brie, the Pillsbury dough crescent rolls, the ones you whack against the counter. Do you know those?
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And I've always got a ton of jam. So I just bought those, ran back, rolled out the dough and kind of just rolled over it with a rolling pin.
Carla Henriques:
It's a quick thing to do.
Kerry Diamond:
Put the brie in the middle, put some jam on top, folded the pastry dough over it, popped it in the oven, and you would have thought it was a Michelin star restaurant.
Carla Henriques:
100%. And I bet with you, it was the favorite thing of everybody. Yeah, that would be for me for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Gobbled it up. Okay. Let's do speed round because we're almost out of time. You survived your first podcast.
Carla Henriques:
That was so nice.
Kerry Diamond:
You were great.
Carla Henriques:
It was really quick.
Kerry Diamond:
What do you start your morning with? What beverage?
Carla Henriques:
Black coffee. Black coffee. And I just learned black coffee in a horchata. One of my chefs took me to-
Kerry Diamond:
Is that like a dirty horchata?
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, with a little bit with the black coffee and it's, oh my God, I'm addicted to it.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. That sounds great. What's always in your fridge?
Carla Henriques:
Light and cucumber.
Kerry Diamond:
And cucumber. Speaking of The Smiths, There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. It's in Carla's fridge.
Carla Henriques:
Carla's fridge.
Kerry Diamond:
What was your favorite food as a kid?
Carla Henriques:
Oh, my God, there's so many. Bacalhau, which is dry salt cod, which in Portugal we have more than a thousand ways to make it. And bacalhau com natas, which is with cream that my mom does is a dream.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite snack food today?
Carla Henriques:
Oh, fava beans. Salted fava beans, I'm addicted to it.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Salted fava beans. Dried fava beans?
Carla Henriques:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Is that a Portuguese thing?
Carla Henriques:
No. It's something that I discover in London and I'm addicted to it.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't even know if I've ever had a dry fava bean.
Carla Henriques:
Go to Whole Foods on the cheese section. You have massive buckets of it. And you cannot have one because if you have one, game over. You'd not stop till you've finished the whole thing.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. I'm going to head to my Gowanus Whole Foods to the cheese counter and get a big bucket of...
Carla Henriques:
Fava beans.
Kerry Diamond:
Dried fava beans.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. Salted. Salted.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Carla's insisting. It's sexier than it sounds. Okay. What are you streaming right now? Could be music, a TV show.
Carla Henriques:
I mean, yesterday when I was flying here, I watch on Apple TV, oh my God, and it just-
Kerry Diamond:
“Black Bird.”
Carla Henriques:
“Black Bird,” yes. And it was crazy. It was about eight episodes and I could not... Yeah, I don't remember talk to anyone. I didn't eat my food. I didn't drink.
Kerry Diamond:
Why was it so good?
Carla Henriques:
I don't know. It was just really well-made. I was lost the whole way. I thought I got it and I didn't got it. And then at the end, it was like, no, I totally did not got any of this. And yet-
Kerry Diamond:
Is it violent?
Carla Henriques:
No, it's not violent. It's not violent.
Kerry Diamond:
Can't do violent or creepy or hard.
Carla Henriques:
It's definitely not violent. It's not violent.
Kerry Diamond:
Dream travel destination?
Carla Henriques:
Japan, which I'm trying to make it next year.
Kerry Diamond:
I've never been either. I'd really love to go.
Carla Henriques:
It's on my list for next year.
Kerry Diamond:
I got to make it happen. I've had this show now for like what, almost 13 years and-
Carla Henriques:
You've been saying that.
Kerry Diamond:
Half the guests say that their dream travel destination is Japan and I always say I want to go and I...
Carla Henriques:
I've been saying it for the last 10 as well, but every time I'm trying to do, something happen. So now we're going to open the restaurant next year, so I'm like, "Oh God, I don't know. Should I book it? I'll book it," but hopefully I make it next year.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, maybe it'll be in our 2026 future that would be amazing. What's your favorite food smell?
Carla Henriques:
Cinnamon.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yeah. We established that already.
Carla Henriques:
And fennel. Fennel is a very Portuguese. My mom makes the best fennel cookies in a wood oven with walnuts that if I think about smell, that would be the smell that I think always.
Kerry Diamond:
I love fresh fennel, roasted fennel, all the fennel. What's your most used kitchen tool or implement?
Carla Henriques:
Palette knife, spatula, my KitchenAid that lives with me. 100% I cannot do with a KitchenAid. I get crazy when my KitchenAid breaks.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have a favorite cookbook or just one that you reference a lot?
Carla Henriques:
I do, Chez Panisse. I love Alice Waters. “Chez Panisse Desserts” is always with me. I love it.
Kerry Diamond:
That is a beautiful book.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. I think Alice Waters is definitely one of my inspirations.
Kerry Diamond:
All of us.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah, 100%. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have a favorite food movie?
Carla Henriques:
“Burnt.” I like “Burnt.”
Kerry Diamond:
“Burnt” is a good one. Is that where he goes and he shucks the million oysters to redeem himself? I haven't watched that in a while. I need to watch it again.
Carla Henriques:
Yeah. The last one I watched was “The Bear.” But yeah, also I love.
Kerry Diamond:
Love “The Bear.” Okay, last question. If you were to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Carla Henriques:
I don't know. I'm going to say again, Alice Waters because I think she's fun. I think we would have a lot of fun cooking whatever we find in the island. Yeah, I think it would be her.
Kerry Diamond:
Great answer.
Carla Henriques:
I would say my mother, but I mean, I think you guys are sick and tired of my mother right now.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you met Alice?
Carla Henriques:
I haven't.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, you need to put that on your 2026 bingo card also.
Carla Henriques:
It's definitely on my list. I went nearby the restaurant last year. I couldn't get a table. It was a last minute holiday. I was really sad, but I have to make it again and actually plan it probably. That would help.
Kerry Diamond:
Carla, that was so much fun.
Carla Henriques:
That's so much fun.
Kerry Diamond:
Great job, love.
Carla Henriques:
Thank you. Oh, that's sweet. Thank you. Thank you, love.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, happy holidays.
Carla Henriques:
Happy holidays.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Carla Henriques for joining me. And Carla, congrats on your first podcast. You did a great job. And everybody, don't forget tickets for Jubilee 2026 are on sale right now. If you buy two or more tickets before the end of the year, you get 20% off. And I forgot to mention this earlier, but check out our Substack at cherrybombe.substack.com. We've got lots of great recipes and we've got the Lucie Franc de Ferriere cover story from the new issue that you can read for free, courtesy of our friends at Kerrygold. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios here at Rockefeller Center. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu. Our executive assistant is Brigid Pittman and our head of partnerships is Rachel Close. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.